Butterfly Hotspots: Kallar (Coimbatore Dt.)
Kallar is an” Amudha Surabhi”. In the Manimegalai, one of the five
great epics of Tamil literature, a character named Kaya Sandigai, was
always hungry, no matter how much she ate, due to a curse and
suffered from a disease called “Elephant Fire”. Manimegalai, (the
daughter of Kovalan and Madhavi of Silapathilaram, with her
“aaputhiran kai Amudha Surabhi (a cornucopia bowl)), offered food
from the same and cured Kaya Sandigai from her curse and disease.
To the hungry naturalists, Kallar always stores something to offer,
anytime during the year and many people have benefited from the
generosity of the place so much so that people tried to own the
place out of jealous! But Kallar is not owned by anyone and treats
everyone the same with occasional preference to non-regular seek-
ers!
Kallar, more specifically the Kallar Fruit Garden, run by state Depart-
ment of Horticulture, is situated 14 Km from Mettupalayam (a city in
Coimbatore District), just a Km away from the Gundlupet- Coimba-
tore- Nagapattinam highways, before the ascend starts to the Nilgiri
Hills. From Coimbatore city, it is about 47 Km.
The Fruit Garden is situated on the sides of Kallar stream, which run
down from Coonoor uphill. The stream eventually joins the River
Bhavani near Odanthurai. The surroundings of Fruit Garden boasts
some rare flora and fauna and very rich of it. This is a known Ele-
phant corridor and they frequent the area. Other predatory animals
such as Leopards and Tigers are present here means the visitors
have to be watchful and never cross the line to the reserved and
protected area without the permission of authorities.
The place is situated 360m above Mean Sea Level and is humid on
most days with rainfall accounting approximately 120 cm per year.
The walk from the Highways into the farm and the paths inside the
farm and stream side (need permission to approach) are the main
pales to look for the butterflies.
Indian Butterflies were first looked into by Linnaeus in the year 1758
and systematic account of Nilgiri Hills butterflies were first account-
ed by Sir George Hampson (1888), followed by Evans, Yates, Wynter-
Blyth (1943-1957) and recently Larsen (1987,1988). Interestingly, M
A Wynter-Blyth was Head Master at St. George’s School in Ketti
(1941-44). His book, Butterflies of the Indian Region published by
the Bombay Natural History Society in 1957 was for a long time the
only handy guide to butterflies in India. In fact many of the speci-
mens collected/ species identified are from places like Kallar, Na-
dugani and Connoor. Low land forest closely followed by wet ever-
green forest make the habitat rich for Butterflies (Source: ZSI).
Search for good places to observe Butterflies in and around Coimba-
tore introduced this place to us from the literature and we have
been regulars to this place for the past 5 years. In fact the first infor-
mal meeting of Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society was scheduled here! As
described earlier our search for the butterflies was confined to the
road leading to the Garden and inside the Garden premises and to
the river streams with prior permission. We are sure we have only
touched the tip of the iceberg and deep, exploratory surveys may
unearth many hidden treasures. This may, however, be hampered
by presence of elephants and other predatory mammals. Studies
were usually undertaken around 8 AM when the sun sets to beat
down and butterflies start showing up one by one and around 10
AM the Garden is fully open which can then be explored to. Sundays
were the ideal days that we have chosen to visit!