MORPHOLOGY
External characteristics
Male
Forewings: Both wings are not uniformly covered in orange and the upper side wing surface has the discal portion pale-yellow to orange coloured (Yata and Morishita, 1979). Hindwings In the distal margin, the orange colouration of the yellow hindwing band is prominent (D'Abrera, 1982).
Female
The female is darker than the male (Yata and Morishita, 1979).
Subspecies and variation
Five to six (D'Abrera, 1982) or seven (Yata and Morishita, 1979) subspecies are described, all subspecies are exclusively found in Philippines; D'Abrera (D'Abrera, 1982) suspects that ssp. nephele and ssp. dilutior are the same species. Ssp. nephele differs from ssp. elis by the narrower black margins on the under side surface of both sexes and a corrsponding increase of the yellow and white bands on the wings (D'Abrera, 1982). Ssp. elis has a broader black margin. Ssp. hostilia is the darkest subspecies (Yata and Morishita, 1979).