Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 January 2025 | 17(1): 26435–26439

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9006.17.1.26435-26439

#9006 | Received 02 March 2024 | Final received 24 December 2024 | Finally accepted 04 January 2025

Confirmation of the presence of Red Pierrot Talicada nyseus nyseus (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in Assam, India

Renu Gogoi ¹, Bijay Basfore ², Roshan Upadhaya ³, Ruksha Limbu ⁴, Anjana Singha Naorem ⁵ & Rezina Ahmed ⁶

^1,2,5 Department of Zoology, Cotton University, Guwahati, Assam 781001, India.

³ Police Department of Basar, Leparada, Arunachal Pradesh 791101, India.

⁴ School of Biosciences, RIMT University, Mandi Gobindgarh, Punjab 147301, India.

⁶ Department of Zoology, Rabindranath Tagore University, Hojai, Assam 782435, India.

¹ renugogoi39@gmail.com, ² bijaybasfore108@gmail.com, ³ roshanupadhaya14@gmail.com, ⁴ ruku432121@gmail.com,

⁵ anjanasingha@cottonuniversity.ac.in (corresponding author), ⁶ rezina_2008@yahoo.com

Editor: Jatishwor Singh Irungbam, Institute of Microbiology, CAS, Centrum Algatech, Czech Republic. Date of publication: 26 January 2025 (online & print)

Citation: Gogoi, R., B. Basfore, R. Upadhaya, R. Limbu, A.S. Naorem & R. Ahmed (2025). Confirmation of the presence of Red Pierrot Talicada nyseus nyseus (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in Assam, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 17(1): 26435–26439. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9006.17.1.26435-26439

Copyright: © Gogoi et al. 2025. 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: RG, ASN, and RA are thankful to Cotton University authorities for providing all institutional support and infrastructure for this study.

Assam, the second largest state in northeastern India, situated south of the eastern Himalaya along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys is a biological hotspot with many rare and endemic plant and animal species (Barooah & Sarma 2016). Guwahati, the largest metropolis in northeastern India and a part of the ecologically significant Indo-Burma global biodiversity hotspot is home to eight reserve forests (RF) (south Kalapahar RF, Fatasil RF, Jalukbari RF, Gotanagar RF, Hengrabari RF, Sarnai Hill RF, Garbhanga RF, and Rani RF) and two wildlife sanctuaries (WS) (Deepor beel WS and Amchang WS) (Bohra & Purkayastha 2021).

The monotypic genus Talicada Moore, 1881 (Type species: Polyommatus nyseus Guérin-Méneville) and its sole species, Talicada nyseus (Guérin-Méneville 1843) is a small lycaenid butterfly with distinctive white, black, and orange wing colouration. Talicada nyseus currently includes nine recognised subspecies, four of which are found in India: T. n. nyseus in southern India (Kunte 2000), T. n. khasiana in Khasi Hills (Evans 1925), T. n. assamica in Assam (Seitz 1927) and T. n. delhiensis in northern India (Kumar et al 2009; Lo et al. 2017). In India, the nominotypical subspecies T. n. nyseus (Figure 1) is known from Maharashtra to Kerala (Skaria et al. 1997), Delhi (Smetacek 2009), Himachal Pradesh (Mahendroo & Smetacek 2011), Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh (Varshney & Smetacek 2015), Manipur (Irungbam et al. 2020), Chhattisgarh (Singh et al. 2023), and Arunachal Pradesh (Upadhaya et al. 2024). In recent years, the reports of T. n. nyseus in the lower western Himalaya and northeastern India suggest its range expansion which could be an indicator of the changing environment (Singh 2005).

Observation: Talicada nyseus nyseus is a butterfly commonly encountered in Guwahati. Despite its widespread presence, the literature review indicates that there are no records of this subspecies from the state. Therefore, the present study provides the first record of this butterfly subspecies from the state based on the sightings in several places in Guwahati City (Table 1, Image 1).

The present record in Assam and neighbouring states Manipur (Irungbam et al. 2020) and, Arunachal Pradesh (Upadhaya et al. 2024) indicates its distribution expansion to northeastern India. Such range expansion of insects is often associated with climate change, globalisation, or anthropogenic activities (Lopez-Vaamonde et al. 2010; Pureswaran et al. 2018; de Boer & Harvey 2020). Leaf damage and the presence of eggs and pupae (Image 2) were also observed on the Cotton University campus on 6 June 2023 (26.187°N, 91.749°E) on the Kalanchoe plant. The egg was laid at the base of a leaf, while pupation was noted on less-damaged leaves, likely as a strategy to avoid predators. On campus, the host plants are found on both the ground floor and the first-floor balcony. Despite this distribution, butterflies predominantly selected ground-level host plants for oviposition. These butterflies were commonly observed in gardens near the host plant Kalanchoe, as well as nectaring plants such as Melampodium spp. and Emilia sonchifolia (L.).

Description: To aid in identification, two adults were collected from the Cotton University campus and brought to the laboratory for taxonomic analysis. Head and eyes dark, antennae clubbed, black with white bands. The wingspan measured 3.8 cm, with the thorax and abdomen dorsally black, and ventrally white with lustrous hair. The underside of both wings is white with a prominent series of white spots at the end of each vein. Hindwing with a black basal spot; three sub-basal, three medial; wing tail is black, tipped with white lunules. Forewing with a broad black outer band, intersected by two submarginal series of white spots and a marginal lunular line: a black spot at the end of the cell. The upperside of both wings is blackish-brown except hindwing which displays a broad orange outer band (Image 3).

The four sub-species reported from India can be distinguished based on the band and the spot pattern present on the wings.

Forewings: The underside of the forewings of T. n. nyseus and T. n. delhiensis have a broad black distal band that almost merges with the marginal band whereas in T. n. khasiana distal black band is narrow and in T. n. assamica, it is narrower than khasiana and this band is not merging with the marginal band in the latter two sub-species (Evans 1925; Seitz 1927; Kehimkar 2016). The gap between the marginal band and the distal band is wide in the case of T. n. assamica but narrow in the case of T. n. khasiana. The white spots in the discal region of the distal band form a clear broad chain in T. n. assamica (Seitz 1927) but in T. n. khasiana this chain of white spots is narrow and in T. n. nyseus and T. n. delhiensis the white spots do not form a continuous chain.

Hindwings: T. n. nyseus and T. n. delhiensis have a broad orange patch on the upperside of the hindwing whereas the same region is comparatively narrow in T. n. assamica and, T. n. khasiana (Evans 1925; Seitz 1927; Kehimkar 2016; Kumar et al. 2009). On the underside of the hindwings of T. n. nyseus and T. n. delhiensis, a few scattered black spots are present near the discal and basal region while in T. n. assamica and T. n. khasiana the number of spots is many. These spots are much larger in T. n. khasiana but small in T. n. assamica. The orange band in the margin on the underside is broader in T. n. khasiana than in the rest of the three subspecies where the band width appears almost the same. This orange band is almost continuous with the black marginal line in T. n. nyseus, T. n. delhiensis, and T. n. khasiana but there is a clear gap between the marginal line with that of the orange band in T. n. assamica.

These characters can be used to easily distinguish between T. n. nyseus and T. n. delhiensis from that of T. n. assamica and T. n. khasiana but no sufficient literature support exists to differentiate between T. n. nyseus and T. n. delhiensis except for the size differences. The wingspan of T. n. nyseus, T. n. delhiensis, and T. n. khasiana are reported to be 3.0 cm, 3.26 cm, and 3.0 cm, respectively (Kumar et al. 2009). It is seen that the T. n. nyseus of Assam are larger (3.8 cm) than the ones reported by Kumar et al. (2009) and slightly larger than the range of 3.0–3.6 cm suggested by Kehimkar (2016).

Conclusion: The earlier records of the butterflies from Assam (Gogoi 2013; Bhuyan et al. 2014; Deb et al. 2015; Modak et al. 2018; Bishaya et al. 2021; Bohra & Purkayastha 2021; Gogoi et al. 2023; Mahananda et al. 2023) do not have records of T. n. nyseus. The present records from Guwahati City, confirm the presence of this subspecies in Assam and its range expansion towards the eastern part of India.

Table 1. The sighting records of the Talicada nyseus nyseus in the Guwahati city area.

	Sighting locality	GPS co-ordinates	Date of sighting
1	Cotton University Campus	26.186^0N, 91.749^0E	02.ii.2023
2	Cotton University Campus	26.186^0N, 91.749^0E	03.ii.2023
3	Cotton University Campus	26.186^0N, 91.749^0E	30.v.2023
4	Zoo Road	26.175^0N, 91.802^0E	17.iii.2023
5	Ganeshguri Market	26.149^0N, 91.785^0E	04.vi.2023
6	Lankeshwar Temple	26.144^0N, 91.647^0E	26.v.2024
7	Gauhati University Campus	26.152^0N, 91.655^0E	23.vi.2024

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