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Butterfly Checklist of Coimbatore District
The Numbers
In India, there are about 1500 butterfly species reported and a recent catalogue account pegs this at 1318 with most of them
occurring in the North East. The Peninsular India and Western Ghats checklists place the count closer to 330 and 340. Tamil
Nadu, which benefits from the Western Ghats checklists and the plains and Eastern Ghats, estimated to have 324 species of
butterflies. Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society, which keeps account of butterfly species sighted in the state from the year 2012, has
so far re-validated 309 species. These 309 species are recorded by members of TNBS, and other naturalists from elsewhere in
the state. Coimbatore District, an ideal replica of the state habitat, except the coastal arrangement, is expected to have all
these 324 species. However, there are certain species which are seen only in specific locations and they are not to be found
elsewhere. Such species (like Red-eye Bushbrown, Red-disc Bushbrown, Nilgiri and Palni Fritillary, Palni Bushbrown, Palni Four-
ring, etc) are likely to reduce the species seen in Coimbatore. Also, it takes decade and more by scientists, naturalists and ama-
teurs to cover an area in detail, and we have just covered 5 years on the path. These are likely to have an impact on the num-
bers we have in hand today– 266.
This will be probably the first district wise data getting out recently to the public view. There are other districts too which can
challenge this number and even better it. They include Nilgiris, Dindigul, Tirunelveli, Madurai, Dharmapuri, Trichy, Salem, etc.
Most of these districts can easily touch 200 species and even more. The Eastern Ghats which is very much present in the dis-
tricts of Salem, Trichy, Madurai and Northern Tamil Nadu Districts are equally good with the presence of butterflies as its
Western Ghats counterparts. Naturalists in these and other districts are currently and actively recording the species occur-
rence.
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Arriving the numbers and the family wise details
Butterfly walks were held almost every week either exclusively or part of other nature walks during 2012-2017. The species
seen are photographed and noted down by the members of Tamil Nadu Butterfly Society. Most observations are by the mem-
bers of TNBS and the TNBS on-line forum records by others are also included after due validation.
Important Species- Discussion
Among the six families, Papilionidae is fully represented with all possible 19 species were spotted in the district. This includes
rarities such as Five-bar Swordtail, Malabar Banded Peacock, Malabar Banded Swallowtail, and Malabar Rose. Common Banded
Peacock and Spot Swordtail are the attractive species seen in good numbers in most places of forest. Common Rose, Crimson
Rose and Common Mormon are the species that we encounter in the city scape very regularly. Blue Mormon and Red Helen,
which are fairly large butterflies belong to this family along with the largest butterfly of Indian- the Southern Birdwing. These
are found in the forest habitats.
29 out of 31 possible species are seen from the Pieridae family. This family is pretty strong in our state of Tamil Nadu and Co-
imbatore too is well represented, missing out on the two high altitude species. Species of importance include Lesser Albatross,
Painted Sawtooth, Plain Puffin, Spot Puffin and Lesser Gull on the hills and Orang-tips, Striped Albatross, Salmon Arabs, Com-
mon Gull and Pioneer in the plains. Commonest are the Grass Yellows and Emigrants which are seen in all habitats. The Wan-
derers and Chocolate Albatross are very attractive from this family.
PATTAMPOOCHI
A TNBS MAGAZINE
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