It is wonderful to visit the Bangalore Butterfly Club FB page once in a while and admire the stunning pictures of a variety of butterflies that live in and around the city. Especially since most of us do not have gardens any more, we don’t see many flying around like in the past. The narrow-banded bluebottle (Graphium teredon) in particular, a black, tropical papilionid butterfly, with pale blue semi-transparent central wing bands, made a striking photograph on the page.
Rohit Girotra the administrator of the Bangalore Butterfly Club FB page, who works with Oracle, says, “The narrow-banded bluebottle is a very beautiful looking butterfly. It is seen in flight in almost all the months of the year. They are quite common in the Western Ghats, but are an uncommon sight in Bangalore. In my fortnightly butterfly walks over the last six years, I have seen this species only on 10 occasions.”
He explains that until quite recently, the narrow-banded bluebottle, was treated as part of Graphium sarpedon i.e. the common bluebottle. However detailed taxonomic studies revealed that these were in fact two different species.
Young butterfly enthusiast Pradeep Nayak who is an IT engineer and businessman says, “I got to snap this beauty near the Chelavara waterfalls stream in Coorg district during one of my recent weekend drives. This beautiful butterfly was mud-puddling on the banks of a stream and gave me ample time and opportunity to snap it from various angles. It was sucking minerals/salts from damp soil, and I even saw it filtering and excreting unwanted liquid back into soil.”
Haneesh KM who works in Christ University and is a butterfly watcher says, “I remember it as one of the most active butterflies around. They are usually found busy flying over the canopies, fluttering even while nectaring or busy sipping mineral rich fluids from wet patches. Very rarely during some cold mornings, they can be found in sun basking with open wings.”
While Ashok Sengupta who lives in Abbigere in Bangalore North says, “The Southern sub-species of common bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon teredon), is one of the 19 species of swallowtail (Papilionidae) butterflies found in peninsular India. This moderately-sized butterfly has a black upper wing with a pale blue band traversing from top to bottom. The underside is dark brown, with a narrow medial band that crosses both hind and fore wings.” This fast-flying butterfly is found mainly in the moist low-level rain forests. It loves to fly in the canopies and is considered a migrant. They are often seen in large numbers mud puddling and acquiring vital salts from riverbeds during summer in the Western Ghats.
They breed on plants such as cinnamon and miliusa tomentosa (Kari hessare) and are on the wing throughout the year. This butterfly has been reported occasionally from Bengaluru but has never been commonly seen here.
