Sightings of Gonepteryx amintha thibetana Nekrutenko, 1968 (Lepidoptera: Pieridae:Coliadinae) from Arunachal Pradesh, India: an
addition to Indian butterfly fauna erroneously placed in southeastern Tibet
earlier
Sanjay Sondhi1 & Purnendu Kumar Roy 2
1 Titli Trust, 49 Rajpur Road Enclave, Dhoran Khas, Dehradun, Uttarakhand248001, India
2 Gabriel’s Wharf, 56 Upper
Ground, LONDON SE1 9PP.
1 sanjay.sondhi1@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 purnendu@ganesha.co.uk
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3278.4687-92 | ZooBank:urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0BD87248-CDBF-42E2-AB71-AD63A58693EF
Editor: James Young, Hong Kong
Lepidopterists’ Society, Hong Kong. Date of publication:26 August 2013 (online & print)
Manuscript details: Ms #
o3278 | Received 27 July 2012 | Final received 14 February 2013 | Finally
accepted 31 July 2013
Citation: Sondhi,
S. & P.K. Roy (2013). Sightings of Gonepteryx amintha thibetana Nekrutenko, 1968 (Lepidoptera: Pieridae:Coliadinae) from Arunachal Pradesh, India: an
addition to Indian butterfly fauna erroneously placed in southeastern Tibet
earlier. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(12): 4687–4692; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3278.4687-92
Copyright: © Sondhi& Roy 2013. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTTallows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and
distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of
publication.
Funding: This study
which forms a part of the Lepidoptera project at Eaglenestwas funded by the Rufford Small
Grants to Sanjay Sondhi (RSG Project Reference No. 42.11.09).
Competing Interest: Authors
declare no competing interest.
Acknowledgements: SS
would like to acknowledge the support by Dr. Ramana Athreya, Indian Institute of Science Education and
Research, Pune, Goutam and Nandita Hazarika of EcoSystems-India,
India Glow of the Begun Welfare Society and the Eaglenestcamp staff at Lama, our driver, Dawa, who assisted
wholeheartedly in the surveys, and Geetha Iyer and Tshetsholo Naro who accompanied the authors for the field trip in
April 2012. SS would also like to acknowledge the support provided by Anchal and Yash Sondhi, who tolerated his long absences from home. The authors would like to thank Dr.
David Lees (Curator – Lepidoptera Natural History Museum) for providing
photographs of the Gonepteryx specimens in the
museum including the holotype of G. amintha thibetana.
For images, table -- click here
The genus GonepteryxLeach, 1815 consists of nine species found throughout Europe, Africa and Asia (Beccaloni et al. 2003; Ratnasinghamet al. 2007). Of these nine
species, three species are hitherto reported from the Indian subcontinent, G.rhamni, G. mahaguruand G. farinosa, while six other species G.amintha, G. aspasia, G. carnipennis, G. cleobule, G. cleopatra, and G. eversi are
extra-limital (Talbot 1939; Savela2013). Two subspecies of Gonepteryx are usually listed as found within
India. The Common Brimstone G. rhamni nepalensis Doubleday,
1847 is recorded throughout the Himalaya from Kashmir east to Kumaon, Nepal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh and the hill
ranges of northeastern India. The
Lesser Brimstone G. mahaguru mahaguru Gistel, 1857 is recorded from Jammu and Kashmir east
to Nepal. In neighbouringcountries to India, bordering northeastern India, G. mahaguru zanekoides de Niceville, 1897, is reported from
upper and western Myanmar while G. rhamni burmensis Tytler, 1926 is
recorded from the southern Shan states in Myanmar (Talbot 1939). The Powdered Brimstone G. farinosa chitralensis Moore,
1905 is only recorded from Chitral District in
Pakistan. However, this overlooks
the Tibetan Brimstone (proposed common English name) G. amintha thibetana Nekrutenko,
1968 whose holotype was collected by Ludlow at Lalung, Pachakshiri, 7000 ft.
(2100m), southeastern Tibet, on 06 May 1938. Pachakshiri is
nowadays known as Mechuka and is a region located on
the upper tributaries of the Siyom River, West Siang
District, Arunachal Pradesh, India. We recorded G. amintha thibetana from EaglenestWildlife Sanctuary, West Kameng District, western Arunachal Pradesh and from Anini,
Upper Dibang Valley District, northern Arunachal
Pradesh.
Material and methods: Dr. Ramana Athreya initiated the EaglenestBiodiversity project in 2003 (Athreya 2006). While
the initial surveys focussed primarily on the
avifauna and herpetofauna of the area, lepidopteran surveys at EaglenestWildlife Sanctuary were conducted over a three-year period from May 2009 to
April 2012, and are continuing. During this period, the area’s butterfly and moth diversity and density
were assessed as part of a project funded by RuffordSmall Grants (http://www.ruffordsmallgrants.org/rsg/projects/sanjay_sondhi). The methodology adopted for the
butterfly survey was visual encounter surveys along fixed trails accompanied by
photo-documentation of the butterflies seen. For cryptic species, the butterflies
were netted, photographed and released. Permission for conducting the biodiversity assessments was received from
the Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department vide letter no CWL/G/13
(17)/06-07/12-14 dated 6 January 2010.
The Lepidoptera survey at Eaglenest WLS was conducted over three years over the following
time periods 21–28 May 2009, 1–10 October 2010, 27–29 March
2011, 20–29 May 2011, 20–26 September 2011 and 20–26 April,
2012 involving 35 days of field work.
For comparison with other Gonepteryx species and subspecies known from the
Indian region, specimens at the Natural History Museum, London were examined.
Measurements and descriptions of the various Gonepteryxspecies and subspecies are based on specimens in the collection and existing
literature (Talbot 1939; Nekrutenko 1973) (Images 2
& 3).
Discussions: G. amintha was described by Blanchard in 1871. Since then, six subspecies of G. amintha have been described. Of these, G. amintha thibetana was
described by Nekrutenko in 1968 with the type
locality of Lalung, Pachakshiri,
collected in 1938 by Ludlow. We
first sighted G. amintha thibetanabelow Lama camp (27010.171’N & 92027.492’E) at
10:31hr on 20 April 2012 at an altitude of 2,100m. This was an individual whose underside
was photographed, but not netted, hence its sex could not be confirmed, though
it, is likely to be a male based on its wing coloration. The second sighting of butterfly was a
male, sighted at 10:51hr, a few hundred meters away from the first sighting. This individual was netted and
examined. A third sighting of a
male occurred at 09:25hr on 21 April 2012. This individual was seen flying along the path between Chakoo and Bompu (27005.128’N
& 92024.361’E) at an estimated altitude of 2417m. The butterfly was not seen during
previous surveys conducted in the same area. Image 1 shows the records of this
species covered in this paper.
An earlier unreported record
of the same species involved a collection of a butterfly by the second author,
during a visit to Anini (28047.733’N &
95054.116’E), Upper Dibang Valley
District, northern Arunachal Pradesh in July 1987 at
an altitude of 1,830m. This
specimen (No. 982924), collected near Anini (28048.6’N
& 95054.6’E) is now at the Natural History Museum, London.
The six subspecies of Gonepteryx that have been hitherto reported from the
Indian region and the countries surrounding northeastern India are G. farinosa chitralensis, G. rhamni nepalensis, G. rhamni gilgitica, G. rhamni burmensis, G. mahaguru mahaguru and G. mahaguru zanekoides (Talbot 1939). Males of these subspecies can be
separated from G. amintha thibetanabased on external morphology alone with the size, wing coloration and shape
being significant differentiators. Table 1 provides the key to separate these subspecies and their known
distributions within the Indian region. Image 2 shows the male and female specimens of G. amintha thibetana, while Image 3 shows the male and female specimensof the other subspecies in the Indian region. Image 4 shows live individuals of G. amintha thibetana, G. rhamni nepalensis and G. mahaguru mahaguru from
India.
The males of G. amintha thibetana (Image 2
& 4) recorded from Eaglenest and Anini may easily be separated from all subspecies listed in
Table 1 as none of them have orange-yellow fore wings with a large discocellular orange spot on the uppersideof the hind wing and a large brown discocellular spot
on the underside of the hind wing. The wingspans of G. mahaguru and G. farinosa are significantly smaller than G. amintha. G. amintha thibetana has a crinkled hind wing with a small
projection at v4, much smaller than both rhamniand mahaguru. The orange-yellow fore wings
contrast strongly with the yellow hind wings in flight so it is quite
surprising that this species has been overlooked. The wing shape is also very distinctive
and will serve to separate the female from both G. rhamniand G. mahaguru.
G. amintha thibetana Nekrutenko,
1968 whose holotype was collected by Ludlow at Lalung (Lhalung 28038’3”N
& 9404’23”E), Pachakshiri, 2100m,
southeastern Tibet, 06 May 1938 is currently not reported from India (de Nicéville 1898; Bingham 1907; Evans 1932; Talbot 1939; Wynter Blyth 1957; Haribal 1992; Kehimkar 2008). However, Pachakshiri is nowadays known as Mechuka and is a region located on the upper tributaries of
the Siyom River, West Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Sightings of G. amintha thibetana in India are mapped out (Image 1),
showing the wide range of the sightings in Lalung, Anini and Eaglenest.
Further confirmation can be
also taken from Ludlow’s own journey description given in ‘Takpoand Kongbo, S.E. Tibet’ F. Ludlow (1940). Hence, the holotypeof G. amintha thibetana,
itself was collected from India; hence its exclusion from Indian fauna is an
error of omission. The sightings
from Anini and Eaglenestare new spot records of this subspecies, eastwards and westwards of its current
known distribution in India and southeastern Tibet.
In addition, there are no
records of G. amintha thibetanafrom Bhutan (Poel & Wangchuk2007), Nepal (Smith 1994) and Myanmar (Kinyon2004). A review of existing
literature reveal that six specimens of G. aminthawere collected by Bailey in an expedition in 1913 in the Lower Tsang Po and Po
Chu Valley between 1,560 and 2,187 m in June and July (Evans 1913). Both these locations are in southeastern
Tibet, and it is likely that these are the subspecies G. amintha thibetana. Hence, prior to the records in this paper, G. amintha thibetana has been recorded only from
southeastern Tibet, in our neighbouring regions,
other than its original description from Lhalung, Pachakshiri.
It should be noted that there
are no records of any Gonepteryx species from
Arunachal Pradesh in previous surveys (Evans 1914; Betts 1950) and more recent
ones such as Athreya (2006) from Eaglenest,Borang (2008) from Dihang Dibang Biosphere Reserve and Gogoi(2012) from the Mishmi Hills. The
sighting of G. amintha thibetana from Anini, DibangValley, too, seems to be the only record of Gonepteryxspecies from that area.
We had only three sightings
of the butterfly in April 2012 and no sightings in the months of March, May, September
and October at Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary. This seems to imply that it is either
uncommon and local or simply overlooked. In addition, a review of literature reveals that the previous sightings
of G. amintha are in the months of April, May,
June and July. With the later
months of June and July coinciding with monsoons, it is likely that few surveys
have been conducted in these months, accounting for the absence of records. Further surveys are necessary to
establish whether the spot records in this paper represent a permanent range
extension of this species, and whether its presence has simply been overlooked
or whether theserecords are just sightings of vagrants.
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