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Endemic Status for Butterflies in the
Tamil Nadu Checklist
Endemism
The adjective endemic denotes, especially of a plant or animal, the
nativity and restriction of the same to a certain place. We always
here phrases such as Malabar Banded Peacock is endemic to
Western Ghats, etc. This means that the population of such
species in nature occurs or restricted only to Western Ghats.
A better definition of Endemism is the ecological state of a species
being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island,
nation, country or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms
that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also
found elsewhere.
Physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to
endemism. There are two subcategories of endemism: paleo-
endemism and neo-endemism. Paleo-endemism refers to species
that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller
area. Neo-endemism refers to species that have recently arisen,
such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through
hybridization and polyploidy in plants.
Endemic types or species are especially likely to develop on
geographically and biologically isolated areas such as islands and
remote island groups; they can equally develop in biologically
isolated areas such as the highlands, or large bodies of water far
from other lakes. Endemics can easily become endangered or
extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not
only—due to human actions, including the introduction of new
organisms. (Source: WIKI)
Ficedula nigrorufa, Black and Orange Flycatcher,
an endemic bird of Western Ghats
Macaca silenus, Lion-tailed Macaque,
an endemic mammal of Western Ghats with
IUCN Endangered Status
The state of Tamil Nadu is unique with the presence of Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats, Plains and the Coastal systems. Butter-
flies are found in all these areas and the target checklist has about 324 species with bulk of them found their home in the
Western Ghats. The land of Tamil Nadu has moist forests, wet forests, dry and scrub forests and vast agriculture tracks. That
means the possibility of more endemic species appearing is high.
As we have defined earlier and seen, endemic is specific to a geographical location and we shall try listing out those species
which get defined under the classification of Endemic to western Ghats, Peninsular India and Western Ghats & Sri Lanka. There
could be an odd error or misjudgement here and readers are expected to apply their own evaluation process before using
these data.
PATTAMPOOCHI
A TNBS MAGAZINE
WINGS 3 VEINS 2
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