Striped Blue Crow (Euploea mulciber) - Sikkim Butterfly

This beautiful butterfly is a female Striped Blue Crow. It belongs to the brush-footed butterfly family Nymphalidae (subfamily Danainae, the milkweed butterflies), genus Euploea, and species Euploea mulciber.

For identification, its appearance shows deep chocolate-brown wings covered in crisp white markings. While the male displays glossy, iridescent blue upper sides, the female in this photograph is recognized by her underwings: the forewing carries distinct white spots, while the hindwing is patterned with prominent, radiating white streaks and dots along the margins.

It is native to tropical and subtropical South and Southeast Asia, distributed from the Himalayas across Northeast India, Myanmar, Thailand, and southern China.

Historically, this species was named in 1777 by the Dutch entomologist Pieter Cramer. Ecologically, it is an essential plant pollinator that naturally deters predators by storing harmless plant toxins in its body.