New Indian butterfly catalogue has 1,318 species

DEHRADUN: Bhimtal-based butterfly expert on Indian species, Peter Smetacek, has come up with a catalogue of the butterflies of India. The catalogue features 1,318 species of butterflies in the country, which had not been documented previously. The research work is the result of years of work by 16 experts, of which four are Indian. The catalogue also gives details of statewise distribution of these species and sub-species.
‘The Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India’ is edited by RK Varshney and Peter Smetacek. Varshney is a retired additional director of the Zoological Survey of India. He has worked all his life on documenting the butterflies of India.
“For the first time since Independence, we know the exact figure for butterfly species in the country. These belong to six families, the Swallowtails (Papilionidae) which have 89 species; Skippers (Hesperiidae) 277 species; Whites and Yellows (Pieridae) 92 species; Punches and Judies (Riodiniidae) 19 species; Blues and Hairstreaks (Lycaenidae) 380 species and the Brush-footed butterflies (Nymphalidae) which have 461 species. The catalogue will be available as a free download from the site www.researchgate.net by early November,” said Smetacek, of the Butterfly Research Centre at Bhimtal.
According to Smetacek, this book will form the basis of a series of free e-books on Indian butterflies. The first in the series, ‘Papilionid Butterflies of the Indian Subcontinent’, is already available as a free download from researchgate. Along with his colleague Rajashree Bhuyan of the same institute, Smetacek hopes to complete the series in due course to fulfill the urgent need for reliable, free information on Indian biodiversity. “We will also continue work on the remaining five families of butterflies here,” he added.
“Butterflies were identified on the basis of literature records, museum collections and recent publications regarding new species or subspecies, range records and so on,” Smetacek said. The team of contributors included experts from Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Russia, France, Czech Republic and Nepal. Laurence G Kirton from Malaysia is also the author of ‘A Naturalist's Guide to the Butterflies of Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand’. Maxim Markhasiov of Russia is an expert on Palearctic butterflies, while Olivier Pequin of France is an expert on Whites and Yellows. Motoki Sait, another contributor, is secretary of the Entomological Society of Japan and an expert on Myanmarese butterflies, while Colin Smith is a well-known expert on Nepalese butterflies.