Recent record of a rarely recorded species, the Veined Palmer Hidari bhawani de Nicéville, 1888 (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Aeromachini) from Jorhat, Assam, India

 

 

Arun P. Singh

 

 

Ecology & Biodiversity Conservation Division, Rain Forest Research Institute, P.O. Box # 136, Jorhat, Assam, India 785001

singhap@icfre.org, ranoteaps@gmail.com

 

 

 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o4031.6839-40 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:290F9976-1277-4C48-8B07-D0FF499741BE

 

Editor: B.A. Daniel, Zoo Outreach Organization, Coimbatore, India. Date of publication: 26 January 2015 (online & print)

 

Manuscript details: Ms # o4031 | Received 16 May 2014 | Final received 16 November 2014 | Finally accepted 05 January 2015

 

Citation: Singh, A.P. (2015). Recent record of a rarely recorded species, the Veined Palmer Hidari bhawani de Nicéville, 1888 (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Aeromachini) from Jorhat, Assam, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 7(1): 6839–6840; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o4031.6839-40

 

Copyright: © Singh 2015. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.

 

Funding: None.

 

Competing Interest: The author declares no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: The author is thankful to Monsoon Gogoi for his help in identification of the species and providing literature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Veined Palmer or the Crescentic Skipper Hidari bhawani de Nicéville, 1888 is one of the three species of the genus Hidari Distant, 1886 (Hesperidae: Hesperiinae: Aeromachini) found in southeast Asia, recorded from India.  The other two species of the same genus being, the Coconut Skipper Hidari irava (Moore, 1858), that occurs in northern Myanmar, Thailand, eastern Malaysia, as well as on Indonesia (Sumatra, Java), Borneo and the Sula Islands and the Long-spotted Skipper Hidari doesoena doesoena (Martin, 1895) found in Indonesia (Sumatra) (www.nic.funet.fi).

H. bhawani has been recorded as a ‘very rare’ species having distribution extending from Assam (Lakhimpur), Arracan (Arakan) Coast and Toungoo, Myanmar, Langkawi Islands, Malaysia (Evans 1932, 1949).  Besides this, Norman (1953) had also recorded a male of this rarely recorded species from a brick wall from Sivasagar District, Assam in June 1952.  The distnguishing features of this palmer from its congener H. irava Moore (Evans 1932) is the pale yellow coloration below, having underneath hind wing evenly straited with brown streaks near costa and near dorsum.  Specimens of H. bhawani from Sivasagar in Assam (female: 18.vi.1952) and from Tungoo, Bago region of Myanmar (male: 24.viii.1928) have been kept in the Bristish Museum can be viewed at the the Indian Foundation of Butterflies (Anonymous 2015a). Another image of this species from Cambodia can also be viewed online (Chartier 2015), while the species has also been recorded from northern Thailand (Anonymous 2015b).

There are no recent records of this species from India; Smetacek (2006, 2007) checklist of South Asain skippers butterflies does not mention this genus. Gogoi (2013) who studied Hesperiidae around Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong in Assam did not record this species.  Recently, H. bhawani, (a male) was recorded on 26 March 2014 at the Rain Forest Research Institute (RFRI) campus (26046’53.52”N & 94017’29.74”E; ca. 97m altitude) in Jorhat, Assam.  Another individual was recorded on 4 November 2014 again in the RFRI campus.  Both these individuals were photographed, the former sitting on the wall in the RFRI building at day time (Images 1–3) and the latter during the night (20:35 hr) on 04 November 2014, perched below a light (Image 4).  These records are significant as they are the third and fourth records of the species from India.  Besides, it gives the presence and flight period of this very rare species in Assam in the months of March and November as well, not known earlier.  The distribution range of this South-east Asian species is Assam in northeastern part of India to Malaysia through Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia.  The holotype of H. bhawani was collected in Myanmar basking on a dead palm branch in 1883 (de Niceville 1888).  Its presence may be linked to the palm trees and bamboos present in bambusetum of the RFRI campus and in adjoining areas. The larval food plants of the genus Hidari, i.e., H. irava is Bambusa sp. and Cocus nucifera (Day 2015).

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

 

Anonymous (2015a). Hidari bhawani Nicéville, 1888 - Veined Palmer. In: Kunte, K., S. Kalesh & U. Kodandaramaiah (eds.). Butterflies of India, v. 2.10. Indian Foundation for Butterflies. http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/sp/2788/Hidari-bhawani. Accessed on 20 January 2015.

Anonymous (2015b). <www.norththailandbirding.com/downloads/thai_butterfly_list.xls>. Downloaded on 20 January 2015.

Chartier, G. (2015). Hidari bhawani. <http://www.tataiwildlife.info/?species=294>. Accessed on 20 January 2015.

Day, L. (2015). Hidari irava. http://www.samuibutterflies.com/insects/butterflies/hesperidae/hidariirava/. Accessed on 20 January 2015.

de Niceville, L. (1888). On new or little-known Butterflies from the Indian Region. Journal of Asiatic Society Bengal 57[Pt.II] (4): 291+13pls+6figs.

Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies - 2nd Edition. Bombay Natural History Society, Bombay, 464pp.

Evans, W.H. (1949). A Catalogue of the Hesperiidae from Europe, Asia and Australia in the British Museum (Natural History). Trustees of the British Museum, London, xix+104pp+208pls.

Gogoi, M.J. (2013). Notes on some skipper butterflies (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) from Panbari Forest and its adjoining areas, Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong, upper Assam, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(13): 4759–4768; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3340.4759-68

Norman, T. (1953). Notes on the Lepidoptera of Assam-II. Some additions to Assam list and other notes. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 51: 515–517.

Smetacek, P. (2006). Checklist of South Asian Skipper Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae). Bionotes 8(4): 92–95.

Smetacek, P. (2007). Checklist of South Asian Skipper Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae). Bionotes 9(1): 13–17.