Butterflies of Vidarbharegion, Maharashtra State, central India
Ashish D. Tiple
Department of Zoology, Entomology Division, RTM Nagpur University
Campus, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India
Forest Entomology Division, Tropical Forest Research Institute,
Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh 482021, India
Email: ashishdtiple@yahoo.co.in
Date of
publication (online): 26 January 2011
Date of
publication (print): 26 January 2011
ISSN
0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor: Peter Smetacek
Manuscript details:
Ms # o2397
Received 29 January 2010
Final received 30 July 2010
Finally accepted 24 November 2010
Citation: Tiple, A.D.
(2011). Butterflies of Vidarbharegion, Maharashtra State, central India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(1): 1469-1477.
Copyright: © Ashish D. Tiple 2011. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows
unrestricted use of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes,
reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and
the source of publication.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Prof. A.M. Khurad, Head, Department of
Zoology; RTM Nagpur University and Dr. Nitin Kulkarni, Scientist F, Tropical Forest Research Institute,
Jabalpur for their comments on an earlier draft and kind encouragement. I thank
Dr. R.M. Sharma, Central Regional Station, Zoological Survey of India, Jabalpur for literature and critical suggestions from time
to time.
The Indian sub-region hosts about 1,504 species of butterflies (Gaonkar 1996; Smetacek 1992; Kunte 2009; Roy et al. 2010) of which peninsular India
hosts 351, and the Western Ghats 334. In
central India, the butterfly diversity reported by D’Abreau(1931) totalled 177 species occurring in the
erstwhile Central Provinces (now Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh& Vidarbha).
Vidarbha is the eastern region of Maharashtra State covering Nagpur
division and Amravati division. It
occupies 31.6% of the total area of Maharashtra. It borders the state of Madhya Pradesh to the
north, Chhattisgarh to the east, the Telangana region
of Andhra Pradesh to the south and Marathwada and Khandesh regions of Maharashtra to the west. No published checklist of butterfly species
of Vidarbha region is known, hence, the present work
was initiated.
Habitats: Vidarbha lies on the northern
part of the Deccan Plateau. Unlike the Western
Ghats, there are no major hilly areas. The Satpura range lies to the north of Vidarbha in Madhya Pradesh. The Melghat area of Amravati District is the
southern offshoot of the Satpura range. Wainganga is the
largest of all the Vidarbha rivers. Other major rivers that drain the Vidarbha region are the Wardhaand Kanhan rivers which are all tributaries of the
Godavari River. To the north, five small
rivers, namely Khandu, Khapra,Sipna, Gadga and Dolar along with Purna, are the
tributaries of the Tapti River.
From the administrative point of view, Vidarbhacomprises 11 districts namely, Amravati, Akola, Bhandara,Buldhana, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Nagpur, Wardha, Washim and Yavatmal.
Forest type: The forests are well distributed over all the agro-climatic
zones. The forest types found in the
area are classified as sub-tropical hill forests, tropical moist deciduous
forests, tropical dry deciduous forests and lush green deciduous forests
(Champion & Seth 1968), which are home to a variety of flora and
fauna. All Maharashtra’s tiger reserves
are located in Vidarbha. They are MelghatTiger Reserve in Amravati District, Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in ChandrapurDistrict and Pench Tiger Reserve in Nagpur District.
Climatic conditions: Vidarbha has three main
seasons: the wet Monsoon and post-Monsoon season from June to October, the cool
dry winter from October to March and the hot dry season from April till the
onset of rains. The temperature of Vidarbha ranges from a minimum of 12-250C to a
maximum of 30-48°C with relative humidity varying from 10-15% to 60-95%. Annual precipitation is 1700mm 90% of the
precipitation falls in four months, i.e. from June to September (Tiple 2009).
History of butterfly surveys in Central India: In central India, the
butterfly diversity was reported earlier by Forsayeth(1884), Swinhoe (1886), Betham(1890, 1891), and Witt (1909). Subsequent works include several species from Madhya Pradesh and
Chhattisgarh (Evans 1932; Talbot 1939, 1947; Wynter-Blyth
1957). D’Abreau(1931) documented a total of 177 species occurring in the erstwhile central
provinces including Pachmari, Penchand Seoni, Nimar, Hoshangabad, Jabalpur, Burahanpur,
Raipur, Bastar, Chanda and
Nagpur districts (now Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha).
In addition to this, D’Abreau (1931) provided a
special list of 92 butterfly species from Nagpur city. In the recent past, several workers have
studied butterflies from urban, rural and protected areas of Vidarbha.
Pandharipande (1990) in his preliminary studies listed only 61 butterfly
species in Nagpur City, representing eight families. A total of 48 species of butterflies were
recorded belonging to 35 genera from Lonar Crater
Lake, Buldhana District (Palot& Soniya 2003); 45 butterflies and 54 moths were reported
from Pench Tiger Reserve (Maharashtra) by Singh
(2004); 65 species belonging to 52 genera representing seven families from Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra (Sharma & Radhakrishnan 2004); 45 species belonging to 36 genera
representing eight families from Melghat Tiger
Reserve (Sharma & Radhakrishnan 2005); 43 species
of butterflies of 29 genera from the Tiger Reserve in TadobaNational Park, Maharashtra (Rai et al. 2006); 68
species of butterflies of 50 genera were recorded from Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (Sharma & Radhakrishnan 2006); 53 species belonging to 36 genera
representing seven families from Lonar Wildlife
Sanctuary, Buldhana District (Sharma 2008); 53
species of butterflies were recorded from Pohara Malkhed Reserve Forest, Amravati District by Kasambe & Wadatkar (2004); 52
species of butterflies belonging to five families (22 species to Nymphalidae, 12 to Lycaenidae, 10
to Pieridae, 5 to Papilionidaeand 3 species to Hesperiidae) were reported from
Amravati University Campus, Maharashtra (Tiple et al.
2006, 2007); 51 butterfly species were recorded belonging to seven families
from Melghat Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra (Chandrakar et al. 2007); 101 species of butterflies of
eight families and 19 subfamilies were recorded (22 species of Nymphalidae, 6 of Danaidae, 10 ofSatyridae, 23 of Lycaenidae,
1 of Riodinidae, 16 of Pieridae,
9 of Papilionidae, and 14 species of Hesperiidae) from Melghat Tiger
Reserve (Wadatkar & Kasambe2009); 103 species of butterflies belonging to eight families and 19 subfamilies
were recorded from Melghat Tiger Reserve (Wadatkar 2008); and 98 species of butterflies belonging to Papilionidae (06 species), Pieridae(14 species), Nymphalidae (39 species), Lycaenidae (24 species) and Hesperiidae(15 species) in reserve forest area, Seminary Hill, Nagpur city (Tiple & Khurad 2009b).
Recently, Tiple & Khurad (2009a) reported 145 species of butterflies recorded
at eight study sites, of which 62 species were new records for Nagpur
City. The highest number of butterflies
recorded belonged to the family Nymphalidae (51
species) with 17 new records, followed by Lycaenidae(46 species) with 29 new records, Hesperiidae (22
species) with 14 new records, Pieridae (17 species)
with four new records and Papilionidae (9 species).
The compilation of all these studies in Vidarbharegion and stray records resulted in the enumeration of 167 species of butterflies belonging to 90 genera representing five families and is given in Table 1. The highest number of butterflies recorded belonged to the Nymphalidae (50 species), followed by Lycaenidae (47 species), Hesperiidae (34 species), Pieridae(23species) and Papilionidae (13 species). All scientific names follow reports by Varshney (1983); Kunte (2000) and common English names are after Wynter-Blyth (1957). Continuous exploration in Vidarbha region could add many more new records for the region.
Among the 167 butterflies recorded from Vidarbharegion, 14 species come under the protected category of the Indian Wildlife
(Protection) Act, 1972. Among them Pachliopta hector and Hypolimnas misippus come under Schedule I
of the Act. The species recorded which
come under Schedule II are Hypolimnas misippus, Eurema andersonii, Appias albina, Tanaecia lepidea, Spindasis elima, Melanitis zitenius, Euchrysops cnejus, Ionolyce helicon and Lampides boeticus. The species recorded which come under
Schedule IV are Appias libythea, Tarucus ananda, Baoris farri, Euploea core (Kunte2000; Gupta & Mondal 2005).
Interestingly, some butterflies (Graphium antiphates, Papilio crino, Ypthima avanta, Everes argiades and Hasora chabrona) which were recorded
earlier by D’Abreau (1931) from Vidarbha(Nagpur city) were not seen in recent years. The probable causes of this could
be the loss of habitats by ever expanding urbanization along with the broader
climatic changes (Tiple et al. 2007). During the last decade, the city has expanded
twice in its circumference causing loss of natural habitats of
butterflies. Urban development is
expected to have a deleterious impact on butterfly populations, if only because
the construction of buildings and concrete replaces or reduces the area of
natural and semi-natural habitats. The
quality of residual habitats may also be adversely affected by various forms of
pollutants (Dennis & Williams 1986; Tiple & Khurad 2009b).
Some authors have reported rather unusual records for the
region. These reports were checked and
found to be based on sightings and field identifications. Since it appeared
that these reports could possibly be based on misidentified butterflies, it was
thought better to include these species in a separate table (Table 2) pending
confirmation of their presence in the study area. Table 2 therefore contains unsubstantiated
new records for the region which have been reported in the literature.
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