Cupha is a butterfly genus of the family Nymphalidae found in the Indomalayan and the Australasian realms.

Cupha
Cupha prosope
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Tribe: Vagrantini
Genus: Cupha
Billberg, 1820
Synonyms
  • Messaras Doubleday, [1848]

The Cupha species are sharply divided from related genera by two characters: the thread like almost clubless antennae and the fourth subcostal nervure of the forewings finishing in the costal border. Only Cirrochroa possesses a similarly formed antennae, but it can immediately be separated as only one subcostal nervure branches before the end of the cell and through the position of the fourth nervure. In all the other genera it finishes either in the apex or in the outer border The species have rounded wings and undersides with eye-spots resemble Satyridae.[1]

The contained species are:[2]

References

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  1. ^ Seitz, A. 1912–1927. Die Indo-Australien Tagfalter. The Macrolepidoptera of the World 9: 1–766;pdf 767–1201,pdf pls 1–175.pdf  This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. ^ "Cupha Billberg, 1820" at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
  • Corbet A.S., Pendlebury H.M., Eliot J.N. 1992. The Butterflies of the Malay Peninsula (4th edn.) Malayan Nature Society, Kuala Lumpur.
  • Parsons M. 1999. The Butterflies of Papua New Guinea: Their Systematics and Biology. Academic Press, San Diego.
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