Butterfly

Plain tiger

Danaus chrysippus

IUCN: Least Concern

A plain tiger butterfly with orange wings edged in black and white feeding on a flower — Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Nemi Nagar Extension, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

A close view of a green leaf with a small hole and a curved groove cut into it — The leaf from his September 2020 record of the caterpillar’s “moat”.
Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Nemi Nagar Extension, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name: Danaus chrysippus
Family: Nymphalidae, order Lepidoptera
Group: Butterfly
Conservation status: Least Concern

A butterfly that tastes bad to birds.

Spot it Orange wings with black, white-spotted tips.
Home Open land and gardens.
Food web Caterpillars eat milkweed leaves and store bitter chemicals; adults pollinate.
Why it matters Pollinates flowers, and its bitter body teaches predators to avoid bright warning colours.

Read more: Danaus chrysippus on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

JaipurDevendra Bhardwaj photographed a plain tiger feeding on a flower at his home in Nemi Nagar Extension, Jaipur, in July 2020.^[20]
JaipurIn September 2020 he noted a plain tiger caterpillar making a “moat” to feed during its first instar, the first stage after hatching.^[20]

Sources

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
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.
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.
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 Not peer reviewed.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.
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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