Diversity and abundance of Butterflies in Chilapata Wildlife Sanctuary, West Bengal.
Mode of Presentation: Talk
Conference Name: 36th Annual Conference of “Ethological Society of India” & National Symposium on “Live organisms and their expressions in the Environment”
Year: 2012
Area: Entomofauna
Authors: Sarika Baidya, Devsena Roychaudhury, Nilanjan Mukherjee, Deepak Agarwal and Arjan Basu Roy
Abstract
Chilapata Wildlife Sanctuary is located in dooars near the foothills of Eastern Himalayas in the northern part of West Bengal. A systematic survey on diversity, abundance of butterflies was carried out from November 2011 to October 2012 to explore the butterfly richness of the protected area. An amazing 199 species of butterflies belonging to six families were recorded from the sanctuary. Nymphalidae and Lycaenidae are the dominant families with maximum species count of 65 and 68 respectively; they are followed by 29 species of Hesperiidae, 20 species of Pieridae, 15 species of Papilionidae and 2 species of Riodinidae. Abundance of butterflies reaches the peak during post-monsoon (Sep-Nov) period. Pre-monsoon (March-May) and monsoon (June-August) periods have moderate species diversity and winter (December to February) period has least diversity. The abundance of butterflies is found in higher number close to the streams and near river beds.