A status on the re-validation of species in Tamil Nadu
An impressive 298 species of butterflies have been recorded in the recent times
from Tamil Nadu, reports Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society (TNBS). This is a result of
surveys and data collected by the society over a period of last 4 years.
Butterflies are insects in the order of Lepidoptera and are closely related to
Moths. Butterflies are colourfully decorated in all imaginable colour hues and
have en-chanted one and all from the young kids to the adults with their graceful
flights and preference to the flowers. No poet in the history had ever failed to
describe those including the Tamil Sangam Age poets to William Wordsworth to
modern day cine lyrists. Yesteryear French semi-fiction Papillon (meaning
butterfly) with Hollywood capitalising on it, as well as its Tamil translation
(Pattampoochi) by our Tamil contemporary author Sujatha, will not go unnoticed
in the world of butter-flies.
There are about 15,000 to 20,000 butterfly species around the world and the Neo
-tropical region of Mexico to Southernmost tip of South America accounting for
about 7000 species alone. In India, there are about 1300-1500 species (according
to various estimates. These numbers around the world are constantly getting
changed as with new species identification, range expansion, sub-species turning
out to full species, etc.
Status on Tamil Nadu
Our state of Tamil Nadu is part of the peninsular India, and various accounts and recent checklists for the region suggest
that just about 323 species are the target ones to check for. The Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats decorate the state. Geo-
graphically, the Western, Southern and North-Western parts of the state are covered by hills. The Ghats meet each other at
Nilgiris and these are extremely vegetation rich. The Eastern parts are fertile Coastal Plains and the Northern parts are a
mix of hills and plains. The Central and the South-Central regions are arid plains and receive less rainfall than the other re-
gions. Given this varied arrangement, it is quite natural that Tamil Nadu can house maximum of species that occur in Penin-
sular India.
Need for the Survey
No recent systematic survey of the state has been done on Butterflies and the list of butterflies available on-line for Tamil
Nadu is a just a copy of neighbouring states. Hence, a systematic and organised way of collecting butterflies was felt as an
inescapable urgent need. As most of the species are expected to occur primarily in the hills and foothills of Western and
Eastern Ghats, more focus was obviously required on these areas. There are however many study material on–line and
elsewhere for specific areas and specific periods and does not represent a state wide or larger representation of land mass.
Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society
Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society (TNBS) undertook this task of systematically collecting and recording number of butterfly spe-
cies occurring in the state of Tamil Nadu in various habitats and in various times of the year. Towards this end, systematic
data are being collected for closer to 4 years now mainly through personal efforts of members through Butterfly walks held
in various habitats and through certain organised butterfly surveys with the co-operation and guidance of Tamil Nadu For-
est Department.
An on-line forum was also created for this purpose and members where are encouraged to report the findings with species
pictures as proof. The active participation of closer to 1200 members from various districts also helped generating useful
data towards this purpose
Target Species
Butterflies are host plant sensitive. Each butterfly depends on exact set of plants for their life cycle and re-production. The
plants are again sensitive to such arrangements and one cannot expect uniform vegetation across all areas. And, hence,
butterflies are also not expected to be uniformly distributed across. Various checklists and yester year books describe the
presence of about 330+ species for Peninsular India. There are certain species which are known to occur only on certain
areas and hence those are removed from the target list. A target list of 323 species was arrived at after careful examination
from the 6 families of butterflies put together. This was the set target to work with.
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