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Insect

Common Evening Brown

Melanitis leda

IUCN: Least Concern
Common Evening Brown (Melanitis leda) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Vaishali Nagar, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Common Evening Brown (Melanitis leda) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Vaishali Nagar, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Melanitis leda
Family
Nymphalidae, order Lepidoptera
Group
Insect
Conservation status
Least Concern

A leaf-brown butterfly that wakes at dusk.

  • Spot it Brown wings with eyespots and a dead-leaf look.
  • Home Gardens and edges.
  • Food web Caterpillars eat grasses; adults feed on rotting fruit.
  • Why it matters Recycles fallen fruit and feeds birds.

Read more: Melanitis leda on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 5 verified records of this species on iNaturalist in 2020, in Jaipur.[20]

Sources

  1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
  2. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  4. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  5. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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