Notes on a communal roosting of two oakblues (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae: Arhopala) and the Common Emigrant (Pieridae: Catopsilia pomona) butterflies in Uttarakhand, India

For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit https://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Article Submission Guidelines, visit https://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientific Misconduct, visit https://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <ravi@threatenedtaxa.org> Note


PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS
Communal roosting, a type of aggregation has been observed in different types of animals, including birds, bats, and primates (Ward 1965;Soini 1987;Lewis 1995;Merkel & Mosbech 2008), and is particularly common in insects, especially in bees, wasps, beetles, dragonflies, butterflies, and moths (Pearson & Anderson 1985;DeVries et al. 1987;Salcedo 2010). Communal roosting of butterflies has been described as a behaviour in which individuals aggregate inertly in close vicinity to each other at a site for more than a few hours (DeVries et al. 1987). Roosting behaviour has been reported for a few of the migratory and non-migratory species of butterflies in India (Antram 1924;Smetacek 2002;Tigers et al. 2014;Patil 2016;Sondhi et al. 2017).
Here, we report the roosting behaviour of three butterfly species, two species of Arhopala genus, A. atrax and A. amantes, and one species of Catopsilia genus, Catopsilia pomona, on an Elephant Apple tree Dillenia indica (an evergreen medium to large-sized tree, native to southern Asia) in the Forest Research Institute Campus, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
The New Forest Campus (Figure 1)   (c) we disturbed the leaves on which the butterflies roosted to check if they left the site to roost elsewhere on a different individual of the same tree species that existed nearby. We also documented butterflies that were observed near the tree. Throughout the observation period, Arhopala amantes were the highest in number (Maximum=19, minimum=14) followed by Arhopala atrax (Maximum=14, minimum=10), and Catopsilia pomona (Maximum=5, minimum=4). A. atrax and A. amantes were observed roosting together on the same leaves (Image 2), whereas individuals of C. pomona (Image 3) were observed roosting on different leaves of the same tree. There were species of butterflies other than the study species (viz., Junonia lemonias, Pareronia valeria, Phalanta phalantha, Neptis hylas, Ypthima baldus, Pieris sp.) near the tree during the period of study. Roosting, however, was not observed in any of those species.
Apart from documenting diversity and richness, there is no mention of observing any behavioural characteristics of the butterflies from the study area (Singh 1999). The amount of aggregation increased in terms of individuals as the days of observation increased. Even after providing mechanical disturbance, the butterflies were seen to roost on the leaves of the J TT same Dillenia indica tree. No change in the species number was observed throughout the study period, and no roosting instances were found on the nearby trees in the same area. Apart from the regularly monitored tree, no other individual of the species in close proximity is recorded with any events of aggregation of butterflies, however, we have not observed any individual of the three species on fruits throughout the study period. Also, the species is not a host plant of any of the three studied species. The studied tree has been preferred as a suitable roosting site as it is located in a shady area, which may provide a favourable resting spot to the butterflies, safe from predators, unlike other individuals. The claim can be justified as the butterflies are mostly found roosting on the underside of the leaves or towards the base of the leaves. The study period coincides with the fruiting period of the tree species, which may be the reason to attract butterflies for feeding, but this may not be the specific reason for roosting in the particular tree. If this may have been the only reason, roosting incidences may have been observed from the nearby trees as well. www.threatenedtaxa.org

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservation globally by publishing peer-reviewed articles online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All articles published in JoTT are registered under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless otherwise mentioned. JoTT allows allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of articles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

Threatened Taxa
Publisher & Host