The Swinhoe's Hedge Blue (Celastrina musina) is a small butterfly found in India that belongs to the Lycaenids or Blues family.
Male underside: pale lilacine grey. Fore wing: costa bordered by a slender line, termen by a comparatively broad and even band of dusky black, the latter diffuse along its inner margin. Hind wing: costal margin diffusely dusky black, termen with a slender black anticiliary line; dorsal margin narrowly pale. Underside: white with a slight tinge of blue. Fore wing: a short line on the discocellulars, a postdiscal transverse series of six abbreviated lines pointing obliquely outwards and en echelon
one with the other, the uppermost shifted well inwards, followed by a sub-terminal series of transverse spots enclosed between an inner subterminal, lunular, transverse line and an outer anticiliary slender line, pale brown. Hind wing: a transverse subbasal series of three, sometimes four, minute spots and a spot beyond on the dorsum, with a larger subcostal spot near the apex of the wing, black; a short slender line on the discocellulars and some irregular dots on the disc pale brown; terminal markings as on the fore wing. Cilia of both fore and hind wings whitish. Antenna, head, thorax and abdomen dark brown, the antennae ringed with white beneath: the palpi, thorax and abdomen white.
Female upperside, fore wing: a broad border to the costal and terminal margins dusky black, the rest of the w ing iridescent light blue; on the costa the lower edge of the black traverses the middle of the cell, on the apex and termen it occupies the outer fourth of the wing. Hind wing: anterior third dusky black, the rest of the wing pale lilacine glossed with iridescent blue in certain lights; a sub-terminal series of dusky black spots that more or less coalesces with an anticiliary dusky black hue and is enclosed on the inner side by a slender similarly-coloured lunular line. The underside, antennae, head, thorax and abdomen as in the male.
The butterfly was earlier known as Lycaenopsis musina
It is found in Assam
- Beccaloni, G. W., Scoble, M. J., Robinson, G. S. & Pitkin, B. (Editors). 2003. The Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex). World Wide Web electronic publication. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/entomology/lepindex [accessed 14 October 2006].
- Evans, W.H. (1932) The Identification of Indian Butterflies. (2nd Ed), Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India