Validation report on some studies on Butterflies and their diversity – around Chennai
Nature study Butterflies of Tambaram: a checklist Authors: Dr Gift Siromoney This is the oldest and most comprehensive list for Chennai. All relevant details about the sightings are mentioned. This is one of the most valuable lists for Chennai city as it deals with old records from 1970 to the 1980s. Majority of the sightings are from Madras Christian College. He records few rare species like the South Indian cruiser, southern birdwing, Grey pansy, suffused snow flat, Indian red flash, Tamil bush Brown. He also mentions the presence of the five bar swallowtail and common Nawab. The five bar swordtail was reported in July-August season in 1983. It would be unfair to include this in the present Chennai checklist without any recent confirmation. No extra notes were made on the Common Nawab. The Anomalous Nawab is more common in the area, hence both could have present at that time. Overall this list is a very important and interesting document which gives us a window into the butterfly diversity at Chennai in 1970-1980 time frame. It is one of the best lists from the city.
Seasonal dynamics of butterfly population in DEA Campus, Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India Authors:- K Jahir Hussian, T Ramesh, KK Satpathy and M Selvanayagam This list was published in 2011 as at the 3 rd Asian Lepidoptera Conservation Symposium. They were able to record 56 species of butterflies, using permanent line transect method of field surveying. The purpose of the study was“ to determine trends in butterfly species constellations and identify their temporal variations, diversity and abundance”. This is the only study that has used Pearson’ s correlation analysis to find a correlation between butterflies and abiotic factors. Overall this list was very satisfactory. Some important records include Bright babul blue, Indian cupid, Great orange tip and Common Silverline. Though the list doesn’ t provide the status of the species, it gives the number of individuals seen throughout the seasons, so the reader can come to a conclusion.
Butterfly studies of Thomas Sathyamoorty Thomas Sathyamooorty, the former curator of the Madras museum, brought out a book on the collection of butterflies kept at the Madras museum. The book has well written text describing the butterflies on display and also has a catalogue from where they were collected. The interesting records from his book include Tamil Bushbrown, Great Orange tip, Indian cupid, Brown Awl and Great orange tip. He had mentioned a record of Dark wanderer from‘ Madras’, which is highly unlikely. The word‘ Madras’ is too ambiguous. Does it refer to the‘ Madras presidency or the city of Madras? The Madras presidency at one time included most of south India, The date of collection is also missing from the book. Hence, I choose not to include this record for the Chennai checklist.
Diversity of butterflies in Tiruvallur district, Tamilnadu, India Authours:- Prabakaran S, Chezhian Y, Evangelin G, John Willam S The above authors have attempted to study the butterfly diversity at Tiruvallur district. This report was published in 2014. Some of the errors are very glaring. I doubt the identification of many species. Some of the species are Malabar Raven, Yellow breasted Flat, Common Awl, Dingy scrub hopper, Black prince, Blue king crow, Tamil lacewing, Sullied sailor, Common onyx, Nilgiri grass yellow, Madras ace and Nilgiri clouded yellow are definitively misidentifications as some of these are yet to be properly documented even in the state. Many more are mentioned in the report. Many other records like Kanara swift, painted sawtooth, Indigo flash, Chinese dart, Club beak, Tamil yeoman need photo documentation to prove and uphold their validity. A total of 30 records are disputed from this list. As much as I would like to treat these records as sporadic sightings, they are too suspicious to validate.
Diversity of butterflies in different seasons in north-eastern Tamilnadu, India Authors – Veeramuthu Anbalagan, Savarimuthu Ignachimuthu, Shanmugam Chandarn and Jonad Gunasekaran Errors in this report are very glaring. Few species are not even spotted in Asia like the Brown Pansy, Booklice swift and fiery swift. There are many mistakes in this list, similar to the one before. This list seems to be made based on the list of the previous article. 71 of the 101 species are common and validated. The remaining are controversial and have no supportive data or notes.
Conclusion The city of Chennai has been studied in the past by various groups and individuals. The current study shows more species growth than any of the predecessors, but also sees the disappearance of certain species. The above mentioned lists are all I could collect from the various sources I have. Hopefully my energetic team in Chennai will throw us some surprises.
Editorial Note: The views expressed here are the personal opinion of Mr. Vikas Madhav Natarajan