COIMBATORE: As many as 337 butterfly species have been identified in the Western Ghats in a two-decade long survey conducted by two researchers—Dr Kalesh Sadasivan and Ashok Sengupta. Out of these, 40 species were found to be endemic and 22 on the IUCN Red- List, of which two are near threatened and the rest are in the least concern category.
Kalesh Sadasivan, a research associate and founder member of Travancore Nature History Society (TNHS) and member of the State Board for Wildlife, Kerala and Ashok Sengupta, a naturalist school teacher and member of Bengaluru Butterfly Club (BBC), carried out the study based on their two-decades-old research and dozens of publications and research journals.
Their study was published in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society in the first week of August. This study enlisted all the species of butterflies seen in the Western Ghats with state-wise checklists. They also suggested the Central government to include rare and endemic of butterfly species under the Wildlife Protection Act(WLPA) 1972.
The butterflies like Red-eye Bushbrown (Heteropsis adolphei) Palni Bushbrown (Heteropsis davisoni), Red-disc Bushbrown (Mycalesis oculus), and The Yellow-striped Hedgehopper (Baracus subditus) Moore are the few rare and endemic butterflies that could be considered for conservation measures, according to the researchers.
Dr Kalesh Sadasivan said, “The WLPA, 1972 and its latest amendments need revision and the addition of many endemic species. The subspecies-specific legal protection must be reworked considering the recent taxonomic changes in nomenclature.”
“It is evident that most of the regions in Kerala and TN have been systematically explored by extensive surveys. But the Karnataka regions of north Coorg-Kudremukh, Someswara, Sirsi, Kaiga, and regions north of Satara up to Gujarat need more systematic assessment. Thus, surveys in Central and Northern Western Ghats, the Biligirirangan Hills, and the adjoining Yercaud Hills (of Eastern Ghats) can elucidate the final species distribution on the mountain range,” he added.