Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2020 | 12(13): 16920–16923
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5415.12.13.16920-16923
#5415 | Received 19 September 2019 | Final
received 03 September 2020 | Finally accepted 11 September 2020
Notes on a communal roosting of
two oakblues (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae:
Arhopala) and the Common Emigrant (Pieridae: Catopsilia pomona) butterflies in Uttarakhand, India
Sohom Seal 1, Debanjan Sarkar 2, Agnish
Kumar Das 3 & Ankush Chowdhury 4
1,2 Wildlife
Institute of India, P.O. Chandrabani, Dehradun,
Uttarakhand 248001, India.
3,4 Forest
Research Institute, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248006, India.
1seal.sohom@gmail.com,
²debanjan1193@gmail.com, 3agnishzzdas@gmail.com, 4ankushjpg@gmail.com
Editor: Monsoon J. Gogoi, Bombay Natural Histroy
Society, Mumbai, India. Date of publication: 26 September
2020 (online & print)
Citation:
Seal. S., D. Sarkar, A.K. Das & A. Chowdhury (2020). Notes on a
communal roosting of two oakblues (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae: Arhopala) and
the Common Emigrant (Pieridae: Catopsilia
pomona) butterflies in Uttarakhand, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(13): 16920–16923. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5415.12.13.16920-16923
Copyright: © Seal et al. 2020. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction,
and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to
the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We thank the Director, Dean of Forest research
institute and Wildlife Institute of India for their support.
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) (30.34°N &
71.00°E, 660m) lies in the ‘tropical moist deciduous’ Sal Shorea
robusta forest sub-type (Champion & Seth
1968) and provides a unique assemblage of natural forest and human
habitations. The campus, comprising an
area of 4.45km2 lies in the Doon Valley of Uttarakhand State,
India. The area receives an annual
rainfall of over 2,000mm, and the temperature fluctuates between 0°C and 42°C
from winter to summer, with a mean of 20°C.
The natural forest is dominated by Shorea
robusta with 267 species of trees, 214 species of
shrubs, 446 species of herbs, 83 species of grasses, 41 species of woody
climbers, 32 varieties of bamboos, and 186 species of fungi in the New Forest
Campus (FRI 2019). The campus harbours a
botanical garden (400 species), an arboretum (85 species), a bambusetum (32 species), big undulating fields, nurseries,
tree, bush avenues, and canals. The
plant species are either distributed in mixed or pure patches. Providing a mosaic of both natural and
human-made habitats, the campus nurtures a wide range of larval host plants to
support almost all butterflies species reported from the campus (Singh 1999).
On 15 October 2018 at 17.00h we first
observed 17 individuals of the Indian Oakblue Arhopala atrax, Large Oakblue
Arhopala amantes,
and Common Emigrant Catopsilia pomona on a Dillenia
indica tree (Image 1) in the New Forest Campus,
FRI (Figure 1). The height of the tree
was approximately 20m, and other species like Coffea
arabica, Reinwardtia indica,
Echinochloa colonum, Kyllinga brevifolia, Crape
jasmine and Suregada multiflora
were present nearby. There were five other
individuals of Dillenia indica
in different locations of the campus.
After the aforementioned initial record, regular observations were made
twice a day to ensure the butterflies are found throughout the day and not at
any specific time of the day (once in the morning at 09.00h and once in the
evening at 16.30h, 04 November 07 December 2018) to find out the regularity of
the observed roosting behaviour.
Butterflies were identified using standard identification keys suggested
by Wynter-Blyth (1957), Kunte (2000), and Kehimkar (2008).
Field guides by Singh (2011) and Smetacek
(2017) were used to identify photographic records. Moreover, Kunte et
al. (2019) was also consulted for proper identification. To check the site fidelity of the three above
mentioned species: (a) we regularly searched other trees near the Dillenia indica, (b)
we checked other Dillenia indica in the surrounding area for other roosting
incidents, and (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 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.
For
figure & images - - click here
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