| Agrias | |
|---|---|
| |
| Agrias claudina - MHNT | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Nymphalidae |
| Tribe: | Preponini |
| Genus: | Agrias Doubleday, 1845 |
| Species | |
|
Five or more, see text | |
Agrias is a genus of Neotropical charaxine nymphalid butterflies found in South and Central America.
The German lepidopterist Hans Fruhstorfer wrote: "In this magnificent tropical genus, upon which nature seems to have showered all her abundance of most brilliant colours, and which is, therefore, justly called the 'princely race' of the Nymphalidae, we are most surprised to meet a repetition of two genera of not less abundant colours: the Callithea and Catagramma, except that the Agrias species greatly excel the latter in size and magnificent colours, and only the males of this genus bear a sexual distinction in the shape of a hair-brush on the hindwings. Some of them, like the famous A. sardanapalus, having been first discovered by Bates in the Amazon Valley, are of an absolutely charming beauty, and the contrast of its purple-red forewings beaming through a blue lustre hued over them as if in a violet purple gloss, with the brilliantly sapphire-blue hindwings, is undoubtedly one of the most magnificent sights that nature has ever produced in the whole world of butterflies."[1]
Prized by collectors, these large, showy butterflies have had hundreds of names applied to polymorphic variants.
- ^ Fruhstorfer, H. (1913). Family: Morphidae. In A. Seitz (editor), Macrolepidoptera of the World, vol. 5: 333–356. Stuttgart: Alfred Kernen.