Hypochrysops


Hypochrysops is a genus of butterflies in the family Lycaenidae first described by Cajetan Felder and Rudolf Felder in 1860.
The species of Hypochrysops certainly belong to the most beautiful Indo-Australian representatives of the family. The upper surface is more or less brilliant blue or reddish-violet, in the mostly somewhat duller tinged females sometimes white-spotted, in a number of species of a bright orange-yellow, usually with a black or black-brown margin which may vary greatly in width. The under surface always shows, on a yellow or dark grey-brown or even black ground, brilliant silvery-green or silvery-blue markings generally occurring in the hindwing as the bordering of brightly coloured, mostly red transverse bands and spots and being often still more salient by black margins.The species are mostly medium-sized, though there occur also smaller ones with an expanse of but 25 mm. Eyes naked, large; antennae of something more than half the length of the forewing, white-curled, the club long-stretched, gradually thickened, with a light-coloured tip. Palpi slender, straightly protruding, and projecting considerably beyond the forehead, laterally compressed, with appressed scales, the terminal joint short, in the shape of a thin staff. Wings broad; forewings triangular, costal margin moderately bent, distal margin straight or slightly bent, the apex sharply or slightly rounded, inner margin rectilinear; 11 veins, 7 and 8 long-stalked, the fork placed rather close to the end. Hindwing somewhat longitudinally stretched, the costal margin bent flatly, the apex and distal margin strongly curved, the border uninterrupted or somewhat projecting at the veins 1 b to 3, sometimes at vein 3, rarely at vein 2 with a very much pronounced lobe, but never with real tail-appendages.

Species

Biogeography

Hypochrysops are found on each side of the Wallace line.

Food sources

The mistletoe plant is ambiguously claimed to be a food source for at least some species of Hypochrysops.
This might be so, but raises some questions because most Lycaenidae have parasitic or mutualistic, often highly specific, relationships with various species of ants, and ants have been reported to carry the eggs of the Apollo jewel butterfly into their colonies inside ant plants of the genus Myrmecodia. Myrmecodia species have certain superficial resemblances to "mistletoes", but are epiphytic, not markedly parasitic, and are not in any parasitic plant family; they are in fact in the coffee family, Rubiaceae. It seems likely that Hypochrysops apollo apollo at least, might feed exclusively on ant food and ant larvae.