FAMILIA DANAIDAE  Boisduval, [1833]

  Relatively large butterflies. The wings are usually dappled, brown, 
orange or blue colours predominating. Fore legs are reduced and useless for 
walking. The sex-brands are situated on the hind wings. The larvae are 
trophically connected with Asclepidaceae and Apocynaceae. 
  The family is distributed in tropics and subtropical, the majority of 
species inhabiting Indo-Australian region. The world fauna includes about 
450 species, from which only one reaches the Asian Russia. 


GENUS PARANTICA Moore, [1880].
Type species: Papilio aglea Stoll, [1782].


111. Parantica sita (Moore, 1848)
(= tytia auct. non Grey, 1846).

TYPE LOCALITY: China.

RANGE: Central and East Asia. A migrating species, the maximal recorded 
length of migrations being 1100 km. Some specimens occasionally penetrate 
into South Primorye, the Sakhalin and the Kunashir (and also Hokkaido, 
where the species can not establish a permanent population). Flight in the 
southern islands of Japan lasts throughout the summer. 

FLIGHT PERIOD: in the southern Japan and Korea throug out the year. 

PREIMAGINAL PHASES: studied in Japan (Fukuda et al., 1982). Probable 
foodplant in Primorye: Cynachium (Asclepiadaceae). Eggs: lightly coloured, 
bullet-shaped with ribs, laid lingly on the under surface of the foodplant 
leaves. Larva: dappled due to alternating spots: roundish blue spots on the 
back, large irregular in shape yellow spots and small white spots on the 
sides, irregular blue spots above the prolegs; the ventral side is dark; 
the larva bears a pair of thin blueish processes on the prothorax and 
blueish caudal processes on segment 11 twice as less in size. Pupa: 
suspended by the tail, stout, almost roundish, greenish-yellow with black 
dots at dark cremaster and in a transversal row just before the abdomen, 
besides, several dots are scattered over the thorax; the wing cases with 
one large and several small white spots. 

PECULIAR TRAITS OF IMAGO: F.w.l.: 50-56 mm; the wing upperside greenish-
white with black veins and a black ornament at outer margin.