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Garden of Butterflies
One can always spot the White Four-ring while the C3R and C4R are sighted not
that often. However, it is the true land of the Tawny coloured Costers with
plenty of their host plant available in the front of the gardens and one could
easily spot 100s of them at times. Leopards and Sailers are other regulars here.
Baron, Joker and Castors are present but sparse. The Gardens then truly belong
to the Pansies and Eggflies. Huge numbers of Pansies especially Lemon and Yel-
low can be seen at certain months while the Grey Pansy being the rarer. Both
the Eggflies have well established here with Danaid being the dominant.
Lycaenidae
The family of Blue is the second biggest by species count but dimensionally
pretty small. There are 92 species estimated to occur in our state, while the
Gardens have returned a value of 36 species, exact same numbers as the Nym-
phalidae species. Except a few months where they go down on numbers and
species count, they are always regularly represented. In fact species like Zebra
Blue, Lineblues and Tiny Grass Blues can be seen in hundred during their breed-
ing seasons.
Plenty of mealy bugs around the hibiscus plants ensure that Apefly is regularly
seen while Indian Sunbeam is not so often seen. If anyone is in love with Silver-
lines, this is the place they would not like to move on. The handsome Plumbe-
ous, not so common Common-Shot and Common Silverlines are present here.
Because of their high numbers, one or two specimens with aberration charac-
teristics are also seen.
Among the Pierrots, Common Pierrot is the most common while Banded Blue is
the rarest. And species like Common Cerulean, Forget-me-not, Gram Blue, Zeb-
ra Blue, Pea Blue are always seen, while species like Indian Cupid, Dark Cerule-
an, Cornelian are seen infrequently. Except the Lesser, the other Grass Blues are
well represented with varying degree of dominance between months. Monkey
Puzzle is sighted once. The months are Dec-Feb is reserved for Guava Blues and
this place should house probably the most number of them in a small land-
scape. The Indian Red and Slate Flashes and Redspot are other notables.
Hesperiidae
Skippers are difficult to find. Although there are 83 species, most of them of
course live in the forest environment, being smaller in size, dull in colour and
crepuscular in nature, it is not a surprise any lists ends with least number of
Skippers. Here too, we had recorded only 21 species, the poorest ratio among
all families.
The Brown Awls can be found in good numbers at time while Common Banded
Awl is the other possible one to sight. The flat is represented by only Water
Snow Flat. The otherwise dominant African Marbled and Indian Skippers too are
not well represented here. The Bush Hopper is seen during their season. The
chestnut Bob is the only regular representative from this family, while Indian
Palm Bob and Redeyes are seasonally represented. The Rice Swifts (Bevan’s
being the dominant) and Straight Swifts are regularly seen. Pelopidas, Telicota,
Oriens and Potanthus are represented by their commonest species!
PATTAMPOOCHI
A TNBS MAGAZINE
WINGS 2 VEINS 2
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