Spotted Royal butterfly

Spotted Royal butterfly

news 

A rare butterfly species — the Spotted Royal (Tajuria maculata), which has not been recorded in the Nilgiris for over a century — was rediscovered again in the district by members of the Wynter-Blyth Association (WBA).

image - the hindu

was recorded in the Nilgiris in the late 1800s

Manoj Sethumadhavan, a trustee of the WBA, told The Hindu that the species was recorded in the Nilgiris in the late 1800s and that there had been no records of it since then.

area 

“It is known to occur in the north-east of India, and there have only been a handful of records of the species anywhere,” he said

 and added that a few records of the butterfly exist in Kerala and Karnataka as well. 

The butterfly is characterised 

by a white underside with numerous black spots.

Home 

The Spotted Royal lives close to its host plant, which are the native Loranthus species, said Vinod Sriramalu, another trustee of the WBA. 

where found 

The record of the butterfly was from the Kotagiri slopes and Mr. Sriramalu hopes to document the species’ entire life cycle. 

“So far, no one has studied its entire life cycle. We at Wynter-Blyth Association hope to be the first ones to document it,” he said.

‘Not many threats’

Mr. Sriramalu said there were not many threats to the habitat where the butterfly was found now.

 He believes that a viable population of the butterfly inhabits the Kotagiri slopes but has remained undetected due to lack of focus on studying butterflies in the district.

 “The reason that this species was ‘rediscovered’ in a sense was because no one had done a prolonged survey in the Nilgiris. 

The Wynter-Blyth Association has been recording butterflies since 2015,” he said.

source the hindu