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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Note A first record of oviposition of Common Onyx onyx Moore, 1857 (Insecta: : ) in and its importance in conserving a highly threatened

Chathura Udayanga Herath, Pavan Bopitya Gamage, Iroshan Rupasinghe & Moditha Hiranya Kodikara Arachchi

26 January 2020 | Vol. 12 | No. 1 | Pages: 15201–15204 DOI: 10.11609/jot.5443.12.1.15201-15204

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Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 January 2020 | 12(1): 15201–15204 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.5443.12.1.15201-15204

#5443 | Received 02 October 2019 | Final received 22 December 2019 | Finally accepted 14 January 2020

N o t A frst record of ovipositon of Common Onyx Moore, 1857 e (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in Sri Lanka and its importance in conserving a highly threatened buterfy

Chathura Udayanga Herath 1 , Pavan Bopitya Gamage 2 , Iroshan Rupasinghe 3 & Moditha Hiranya Kodikara Arachchi 4

1 Sandanangama, Dunkannawa, Sri Lanka. 2 Meemanage Wata, Godagama, Matara, Sri Lanka. 3 110/D, “Ramani”, Deniyaya Road, Kotapola, Sri Lanka. 4 42M, Mahaweli Housing Complex, Pallekele, Sri Lanka. 1 [email protected], 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected] (corresponding author)

Horaga onyx (Moore 1857) commonly known as the food plant of H. onyx in has been recorded as Common Onyx or Blue Onyx is a Lycaenid buterfy found (Coriariaceae) (MacKinnon & de in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan populaton was described Nicéville 1898; Chandrasekharan 2019). Glochidion as Horaga onyx cingalensis by Moore (1884); it is also rubrum (Phyllanthaceae) has been reported as a larval found in India. Adult buterfies are very seldom seen, food plant in Taiwan and Litsea rotundifora (Lauraceae) and have been historically recorded very infrequently in Hong Kong (Igarashi & Fukuda 2000). Kasambe (2016) and in very low numbers. The biology of this buterfy reported ovipositon on Crassocephalum crepioides in Sri Lanka is unknown and was placed under the Data (Asteraceae) in southern Western Ghats of India and Defcient category in IUCN Red List in Sri Lanka in 2007 suggested it being a potental larval food plant. No (IUCN & MOENR 2007). In 2012 it was declared critcally informaton on the early stages or ovipositon behavior endangered in the Natonal Red List (MOE 2012). of H. onyx has been previously recorded in Sri Lanka, and H. onyx was reported to occur mainly in the hills, up the observatons from this locaton are the frst. to an elevaton of about 760m (d’Abrera 1998). It has Observatons of the ovipositon behavior was recorded been historically recorded from Kandy, Rathnapura, using two binoculars; a Bushnell 8x42 and Swarovski Deniyaya, Kotawa and a few other locatons in the 10x56. All images were taken with a Canon 7D Mark II Galle District (Ormiston 1924; Woodhouse 1949) (Figure DSLR camera with 100–400 mm lens. 1). Recently it was recorded from the Sinharaja Forest Observatons were carried out at Enasalwata, situated Reserve at Kudawa and Deniyaya (van der Poorten & van about 7km (aerial distance) northeast of Deniyaya Town, der Poorten 2018) and at Pallekele (Moditha Kodikara in southern Sri Lanka. It is a part of the Sinharaja Forest Arachchi pers. obs. 27.vii.2018) (Figure 1). The larval Reserve with elevaton ranging 800–1,200­ m. Lower

Editor: Nancy van der Poorten, Toronto, Canada. Date of publicaton: 26 January 2020 (online & print)

Citaton: Herath, C.U., P.B. Gamage, I. Rupasinghe & M.H.K. Arachchi (2020). A frst record of ovipositon of Common Onyx Horaga onyx Moore, 1857 (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in Sri Lanka and its importance in conserving a highly threatened buterfy. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(1): 15201–15204. htps://doi. org/10.11609/jot.5443.12.1.15201-15204

Copyright: © Herath et al. 2020. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton.

Funding: Self-funded.

Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests.

Acknowledgements: We thank Ms. Chinthani Malsha Eeriyawala for her kind support with botanical aspects. We are also thankful to Dr. George Van der Poorten for his comments to improve this manuscript.

15201 J TT First record of ovipositon of Common Onyx in Sri Lanka Herath et al.

Figure 1. Records of Horaga onyx in Sri Lanka (modifed afer van der Poorten & van der Poorten (2018)).

montane evergreen forests are observed in this area Sri Lanka, occurring from wet lowlands to montane (Image 4) with layering of the forest vegetaton typical forests (Dassanayake 1997) and can be seen regularly on to that of primary rainforests (Gunatlleke et al. 2008). roadsides and forest edges in this area. It was identfed Average annual rainfall of this area is 5,000–6,000 mm, with its characteristc leaves, which are large, with with most precipitaton during the southwest monsoon slender petoles; 6–18 cm, blades ovate, papery, base between May and September, followed by the inter- broadly rounded and peltate, apex acute, numerous monsoon rains and the northeast monsoon (Department palmate secondary nerves arising from petole inserton, of Meteorology, Sri Lanka 2019) few conspicuous elongate glands on main nerves beside On 14 July 2019, a female H. onyx was observed fying petole inserton of which two were most prominent around a Macaranga indica (Euphorbiaceae) tree in and was used to separate this species from Macaranga Sinharaja Forest Reserve at Enasalwata, Deniyaya, Sri peltata (Euphorbiaceae) which is the only confusion Lanka (6.3910N & 80.6040E). The elevaton of the site species and lacks these glands. The tree was at the is 1,024m. Relatve humidity at the tme of observaton fowering stage with its fower panicles formed along was around 65% with varying cloud cover of 20–70 %. the branches. The observatons recorded here were made adjacent The buterfy was identfed by its characteristc white to a stream near a roadside tree that was about six band on the underwing which was broad over both meters in height. M. indica Wight, 1852, is natve to fore- and hind-wings (Image 1), distnguishing it from

15202 Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 January 2020 | 12(1): 15201–15204 J TT First record of ovipositon of Common Onyx in Sri Lanka Herath et al.

© Moditha Kodikara Arachchi

© Chathura Udayanga Image 2. Horaga onyx cingalensis egg on the base of a developing inforescence of Macaranga indica.

Image 1. Horaga onyx female perched on Macaranga indica leaf.

the similar Brown Onyx (H. albimacula). Less extensive and less intense blue on upper wings implied that it was a female (Woodhouse 1949; d’Abrera 1998; van © Chathura Udayanga der Poorten & van der Poorten 2018). The buterfy Image 3. Horaga onyx cingalensis egg on a branchlet of Macaranga few around the periphery of the tree, seldom moving indica. away. It few over the entre canopy crown which ranged from three to six meters high from ground level, but favored the sun-lit side. It perched on leaves to sun bathe several tmes but seldom remained for more than about 40 seconds on a leaf, before fying of again. In one instance it few down and perched briefy on a bush near the ground. From tme to tme the female few from its perch on to the peduncle of an inforescence with developing fower buds. On one occasion, it perched near the base of the inforescence, moved to the developing foral buds, curved its abdomen and placed a single egg on it (Image 2). In some instances, although it few on to a branchlet © Chathura Udayanga or a fower panicle, no ovipositng was observed. Just Image 4. Lower montane forest habitat in the area. afer ovipositng, the buterfy was seen fying over the canopy and was not seen again on that day. These observatons were made from 12.25h to 12.40h during same individual seen the day before. During the short which tme the sky was clear with intermitent clouds; a period observed, it oviposited once. This tme the egg slight drizzle occurred in the morning. was laid directly on a branchlet, close to a fower panicle The next day, on 15 July 2019, we observed a female (Image 3). In other respects its behavior was similar to fying around the same tree between 09.20h and 09.30h that seen the day earlier. It appears, judging from its but were unable to confrm whether or not it was the ovipositon behavior and the locaton where eggs were

Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 January 2020 | 12(1): 15201–15204 15203 J TT First record of ovipositon of Common Onyx in Sri Lanka Herath et al.

laid, that the larvae feed on fowers and fower buds. Department of Meteorology, Sri Lanka (2019). htp://www.meteo. The current informaton obtained from this site is gov.lk/index.php?opton=com_content&view=artcle&id=94&Itemi d=310&lang=en Accessed on 31 July 2019. crucial for gathering further informaton on the biology Gunatlleke, N., R. Pethiyagoda & S. Gunatlleke (2008). Biodiversity of this species and paves the way to understand its of Sri Lanka. Journal of the Natonal Science Foundaton of Sri Lanka 36 (Special Issue): 25–62. htps://doi.org/10.4038/jnsfsr.v36i0.8047 restricted distributon and scarcity. This is partcularly Igarashi, S. & H. Fukuda (2000). The life histories of Asian buterfies. relevant because of the dearth of informaton on the Vol. 2. Tokai University Press, Japan, 742pp. biology of the species, which has been a drawback to the IUCN & MOENR (2007). The 2007 Red List of Threatened Fauna and Flora of Sri Lanka, Colombo, 148pp. development of a conservaton strategy to protect this MOE (2012). The Natonal Red List of 2012; Conservaton status of the highly threatened subspecies. Further, M. indica must Fauna and Flora, Ministry of Environment, Colombo, 452pp. be confrmed as the larval host plant of this species by Jayasinghe, H.D., S.S. Rajapaksha & C. de Alwis (2014). A compilaton and analysis of food plants utlizaton of Sri Lankan buterfy larvae rearing larvae to successful emergence of adults. Untl (Papilionoidea). Taprobanica 6(2): 110–131. such tme, the suggested larval food plant here must be Kasambe, R. (2016). Errata: Crassocephalum crepioides, and not Gnura considered tentatve, since it is well known that some cusimbua, possible new larval host plant of the Common Onyx, Horaga onyx from Southern Western Ghats, Kerala. Bionotes 18(4): species sometmes oviposit on plants that are not used 131. as larval food plants. MacKinnon, W. & L. de Nicéville (1898). A list of the buterfies of Mussoorie in the western Himalayas and neighboring regions. Part III. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 11: 585–605. References Moore, F. (1880–1887). The Lepidoptera of Ceylon, Vol. 1, 2 & 3. L. Reeve, London. pp.i–xii+1–190, pp.i–viii+191–353 & pp.i–xv+354– Chandrasekharan, V.K. (2019). Horaga onyx (Moore, [1858]) – 932. Common Onyx. In: Kunte, K., S. Sondhi & P. Roy (eds.). Buterfies Ormiston, W. (1924). The Buterfies of Sri Lanka, H.W. Cave & of India, v. 2.68. Indian Foundaton for Buterfies. htp://www. Co.,Colombo, 143pp. ifoundbuterfies.org/sp/973/Horaga-onyx. Accessed on 14 van der Poorten, G.M & N.E. van der Poorten (2018). Field guide to December 2019. the Buterfies of Sri Lanka. Lepodon Books, Toronto, 250pp. d’Abrera, B. (1998). The Buterfies of Ceylon. WHT, Colombo, 166pp. Woodhouse, L.G.O. (1949). The Buterfy Fauna of Ceylon, 2nd Editon. Dassanayake, M.D. (eds.) (1997). A Revised Handbook to the Flora of The Colombo Apothecaries’ Co. Ltd., Colombo, 138pp. Ceylon. Vol. 11. Oxford & IBH Publishing Co., New , 420pp.

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PLATINUM The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservaton globally by publishing peer-reviewed artcles online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. OPEN ACCESS All artcles published in JoTT are registered under Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License unless otherwise mentoned. JoTT allows allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of artcles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton.

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)

January 2020 | Vol. 12 | No. 1 | Pages: 15091–15218 Date of Publicaton: 26 January 2020 (Online & Print) www.threatenedtaxa.org DOI: 10.11609/jot.2020.12.1.15091-15218

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