Butterflies of Eravikulam National Park and its environs in the Western Ghats of Kerala, India

Abstract

The Eravikulam National Park (ENP) holds the largest remaining pristine patches of southern montane wet temperate forests and southern montane wet temperate grasslands of peninsular India. The study shows that ENP harbours 198 species of butterflies, constituting 60.73% of the butterflies recorded from Kerala and 59.10% of butterflies observed in Western Ghats (WG). Thirty-five species of butterflies seen in ENP have some level of endemicity associated with them and 22 of them (52.38%) are strictly endemic to WG. Twenty-seven species are under the schedules of Indian Wildlife Act 1972 (WPA) and its amendments. This National Park has montane grassland-Shola dependent super-endemics like Neptis palnica and Telinga davisoni. ENP also holds Parantica nilgiriensis a Near Threatened species and another 11 Western Ghats endemics, namely, Telinga davisoni, T. oculus, Ypthima chenu, Y. ypthimoides, Arnetta mercara, Baracus hampsoni, B. subditus, Thoressa astigmata, T. evershedi, Oriens concinna, and Caltoris canaraica, which are primary grass feeders. Eravikulam, on the Anamalai–High Range–Palni landscape, lies on a major path of the return migration of butterflies to Western Ghats before the north-east monsoons. Although well-protected, the ENP has anthropogenic pressures from tea estates surrounding it, mammal-oriented management practices like controlled burning of primary grasslands, and natural forest fires, that can significantly affect the invertebrate fauna especially montane grassland shola-dependent butterflies.