Information on food plant preference and seasonal variation in life cycle attributes of butterflies are vital in their role for environmental conservation. The food plant range of the psyche butterfly, Leptosia nina Fabricius, is comprised of Capparis, Crateva (Capparaceae) and Cleome (Cleomaceae) species in its distribution range comprising Oriental, east Palearctic and Mediterranean regions. However, in northeastern parts of India which lie on the western flank of the Indo-Myanmar biodiversity hotspot, where Capparis and Crateva plants are absent, L. nina uses two food plant species, Cleome monophylla (Cleomaceae) and Rorippa indica (Brassicaceae), only for oviposition and larval development in different proportions in different seasons; females used C. monophylla in higher proportions during the summer and rainy seasons but used R. indica in higher proportions in autumn and winter. Here R. indica is recorded as a novel host record of L. nina from its distribution range. Between the two plant species, development time did not show variation when host transfer experiments were carried out. Host transfer experiments showed that both C. monophylla and R. indica have the same value as larval food. Results suggested that L. nina larvae showed adaptation to a narrow range of hosts in the area of this study. This pattern seems to be consistent with the patch dynamic hypothesis of host selection proposed by Thomson in 1988 according to which geographic variation in host use follows geographic variation in the relative abundance of potential hosts. This has important implications for the association of hosts and butterflies and their conservation.
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