Rare butterfly sighted at Arippa forests

The Hindu, December 30, 2015

Nature lovers from the Thiruvananthapuram-based Warblers and Waders chanced upon a ‘very rare’ Banded Royal-Rachana jalindra (Horsfield) butterfly at the Arippa Ammayambalampacha forests on the borders of Kollam-Thiruvananthapuram districts during a two-day nature watching camp organised in connection with the silver jubilee of the organisation.

The group described the sighting as incredibly rare because the Banded Royal was last sighted in these forests 10 years ago. C. Susanth, who led the group, said the butterfly was seen settling for a long period basking in the sun and that ‘provided us the opportunity to click some great photos of the winged beauty’. The trail was conducted in with support from the Forest Department.

The colour of the spotted Banded Royal’s wing was pure white below and a brown band on the upper side both on the fore and the hind wings. The hind wings were a bit worn out. Mr. Susanth said that Banded Royals are considered rare to very rare in Kerala. Very few sightings of this butterfly were reported from Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary (Kannur) and Vazhchal-Athirapilly reserve forests (Thrissur) in the past.

The natural habitat of these butterflies is thick forests below 5,000 feet. They usually settled on the undersides of leaves, are not is not very active flyers, and rarely come to flowers or damp patches. The one spotted at Arippa was found settling on a leaf along the trekking path. During the camp, 60 species of butterflies were recorded.

Mr. Susanth said significant butterfly sightings were aberrant oak blue, Malabar rose, Travancore evening brown, Malabar banded swallowtail, Indian ace, Tamil grass dart and black-veined sergeant. The endemic damselflies Malabar torrent dart, Travancore bambootail and jungle grass dart were observed by the team.

Eighty bird species, which included the brown fish owl, grey headed bulbul, black Eagle, sparrow hawk, and great eared nightjar, were also observed. R. Jayaprakash, K.A. Kishore, B.V. Premkrishnan and Dr. Abhiram Chandran.