Memphis xenocles

Memphis xenocles
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Tribe:	Anaeini
Genus:	Memphis
Species:	M. xenocles
Binomial name
Memphis xenocles (Westwood, 1850) [1]

Memphis xenocles is a species of leafwing found in South America.

Subspecies

• Memphis xenocles xenocles (Westwood, 1850); present in Colombia, Bolivia, and Guyana
• Memphis xenocles carolina (Comstock, 1961) ^[2] ; present in Mexico
• Memphis xenocles fisilis (Hall, 1935) ^[3] ; present in Colombia
• Memphis xenocles marginalis (Hall, 1935); present in Brazil

Description

Memphis xenocles is a butterfly with a wingspan of about 52 mm to 60 mm, with forewings with a humped costal edge, angular apex, almost straight outer edge and slightly concave inner edge. Each hindwing bears a tail.

The upper part is navy blue or brown with a metallic blue basal part and a few blue spots on the forewings near the apex.

The underside is brown covered with pearly white and simulates a dead leaf.

Seitz: "A. xenocles Westw. (= xenoclea Stgr.) (119 a) is distributed from Guatemala to Bolivia and Rio de Janeiro and seems to be very common. Here the basal parts of the wings are of an intense metal-blue gloss: the submarginal row of spots on the forewings, however, is irregular, approaches the distal margin at the inner angle and is continued on the hindwings in the shape of obsolete internerval, diffuse spots before the border. Under surface finely, though brightly silvery irrorated. The female has a lighter blue base of the wings and only two white subapical spots of the forewings. — subbrunnescens Stgr. from Bolivia seems to be only an aberrative form being beneath, especially on the hindwings, scaled more in brown." ^[4]

Biology

The host plants of its caterpillar are Crotons . ^[5]

References

1. Westwood,. J. O, 1850 The genera of diurnal Lepidoptera, comprising their generic characters, a notice of their habitats and transformations, and a catalogue of the species of each genus; illustrated with 86 plates by W. C. Hewitson London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
2. Comstock, W. P.1961. Butterflies of the American Tropics: the genus Anaea. Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae. New York: Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 214pp,30pl.
3. Hall, A. (1935) New forms of Nymphalinae and Ithomiinae. Entomologist, 68, 221–227.
4. Röber, J. "ANAEA". In Seitz, Adalbert (ed.). The Macrolepidoptera of the world. Stuttgart: Fritz Lehmann Verlag. p. 586. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
5. • Savela, Markku (April 7, 2019). "Memphis Hübner, [1819]". Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms. Retrieved July 13, 2025.