page_title: Luthrodes pandava
section_title: Larva
hierarchical_section_title: Luthrodes pandava / Life cycle / Larva
caption_attribution_description: English: Cycad Caterpillar tending by Ants
context_page_description: Luthrodes pandava, the plains Cupid or cycad blue, is a species of lycaenid butterfly found in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, United Arab Emirates, Indochina, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Java, Sumatra and the Philippines. They are among the few butterflies that breed on plants of the cycad class.
context_section_description: "When full-grown a little over half an inch in length, of two distinct colours, some being bright green, others of a dark reddish purple (vinous) .... head very small, black, shining and hidden beneath the second segment, the third segment larger than the second, the other segments about equal in size, the anal segment flattened and rounded, divisions between the segments well-marked. The larva throughout is very rough, widely pitted or depressed and covered with very minute white tubercles bearing very short fine hairs, neither the hairs nor the tubercles being visible without a lens. The body at its highest and widest part is wider than high. It is extremely variable in its markings, hardly any two being exactly alike; there is usually a dark, dorsal, subdorsal and lateral line dividing the upper surface of the body into three equal areas, the dorsal and two subdorsal lines coalescing on the eleventh segment and forming a broad band to the thirteenth. In some specimens the divisions between the segments are marked with darker and there is a subdorsal series of oblique dark lines, one on each segment between the dorsal and subdorsal lines. The underside of the body and legs seems to be always green. The erectile organs on the twelfth segment very small, feeds in Calcutta on Cycas revoluta. In Calcutta three species of ants attend this larva, which Professor Forel has identified for me as Prenolepis longicornis, Latr., Monomorium speculare, Mayr and Crematogaster, n. sp." (Lionel de Nicéville quoted in Bingham)
caption: Cycad Cupid caterpillar tended by ants
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