Book Review: The Butterfly Fauna of Sri Lanka

Abstract

An absolute delight – this was the first impression as I first leafed through this book, and the feeling only became deeper as I read through. Sri Lanka desperately needed a comprehensive, updated reference to its butterflies, and the long wait for such a book appears to have been worth it. This book fulfills a glaring lacuna. For long, butterfly enthusiasts have had to rely on outdated, colonial era butterfly guides to identify or study Sri Lankan butterflies. Although Bernard D’Abrera’s ‘The Butterflies of Ceylon’, published at the turn of the Century, provides a photographic reference to all the then known butterflies of the country, it lacks a key, and has no natural history information. Other works that include identification keys tend to be rather dense for the typical butterfly watcher, and are not comprehensively illustrated. What was needed was a butterfly reference covering all species, and including informative photographs (or illustrations) which anyone can use to identify all the butterflies of the region. ‘The Butterfly Fauna of Sri Lanka’ covers all these bases, and more. The gorgeous photographs illustrate dorsal and ventral wing surfaces of males and females. If field photographs were unavailable, photographs of set specimens are included. Combined with the