Editorial photo #10491632 Human Interest

Animal India

The rice swift (Borbo cinnara), or Formosan swift, or rice leaf folder, is a skipper butterfly belonging to the family Hesperiidae, found in Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Taiwan, and Australia. On the upper side, the wings are brown with the basal area yellowish green. The forewing has a yellow non-hyaline spot in space 1b and a decreasing series of hyaline spots from spaces 2 to 4, 6 to 8, and two spots in the cell. The hind wing has a few obscure hyaline spots and does not have any cell spots. On the underside, the wings are yellowish brown with greenish scaling. The hind wing has whitish spots in spaces 2-4 and 6, where the spot in space 4 is typically small or even absent. They visit flowers of periwinkle, golden trumpet, Lantana polyacantha, and light-blue snakeweed. A rice swift butterfly is sitting on a leaf in a forest at Tehatta, West Bengal, India on 11/09/2023. (Photo by Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto)