Rare ‘Marbled Map’ butterfly sighted in Eastern Ghats

When a group of green enthusiasts were Exploring around the thick forest of Eastern Ghats near P.M. Kota village of Maredumilli mandal in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh a few days ago, they were hoping to sight some interesting flora and fauna.

Little did they realise they would stumble upon a butterfly species never before sighted in south India.

N. Chandramohan Reddy, an Indian Forest Service officer, currently working as the managing director of A.P. Urban Greening and Beautification Corporation Ltd., was on a “green walk” with his friends, when he chanced upon the ‘Marbled Map’, a rare butterfly species usually found in the north-east .

“It immediately struck me I was looking at something special and unique. I am familiar with butterflies but this one I never saw before. Without any hesitation I took out my camera Nikon D7100 to shoot,” says an excited Mr. Reddy.

He shared the snaps with his team of S. Raghupathy of CII-Green Business, and his understudy Venkat Raju. On his return to the capital, the official immediately referred to published material on butterfly habitats and realised their find belonged to the ‘Marbled Map’ species.

According to the

Book of Indian Butterflies by Issac Kehimkar and published by Oxford University Press, Marbled Map or

Cyrestis cocles is listed as a “rare” butterfly species confined to forested hills in the region between Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bhutan and Myanmar.

It is found to be pale green with faint vertical lines and rounded wings. Wings span is between 50-60 mm.

Mr. Reddy then contacted Mr. Kehimkar, a deputy director at the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), an expert in this field, to share his finding. The avid naturalist too confirmed the species. “It’s a new find and good news because the species was found up to West Bengal and Orissa besides north-east. It shows that there is lot of work to be done in the Eastern Ghats where little research has gone into unlike the Western Ghats,” he said.

India is home to 1,318 recorded butterfly species while the figure is about 1,500 in the entire sub-continent. A formal note will be sent to the BNHS so that it can be included in the new butterfly index.