Guwahati: Wings of a beautiful hue were spotted fluttering at the D'ering Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh for the first time after the 1930s.
The lilac silverline ( Apharitis lilacinus), a rare species that belongs to the blue family of butterflies, was spotted by experts Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi and Ngulkholal Khongsai during a survey on May 15.
This group of butterflies is called silverline because of the silver lines that run through its red bands.
The species is endemic to India and Myanmar and is rarely spotted.
"The species was recorded in the grasslands of the D'ering wildlife sanctuary by Ngulkholal Khongsai and me during field work of the Bombay Natural History Society team. The sightings of the species emphasise the importance of grassland habitat in terms of butterfly conservation as most of the butterflies are found in the woodlands," Gogoi told The Telegraph.
"However, one male and three females of the rare butterfly species were photographed on May 15. This is a rediscovery of the species in the Northeast since the 1930s. Riley, in 1925, mentioned its record for the first time from North Lakhimpur on the basis of a record by H. Stevens," he said.
The butterfly is known in Assam but was only recorded during the British era. In South India, it was photographed for the first time near Hesarghatta lake in Bangalore district in 2012.
Historically, the species was known to occur from Bangalore, Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh), Hardwar (Uttarkhand), Mhow (Madhya Pradesh), Malda (Bengal) and Assam in 1930s but except Bangalore, it's not known from any of the past historical records. The species is also reported from Myanmar and may occur in Thailand (De Abera 1984) but no recent photographic evidence is available.
Gogoi said, "The females have red bands on the underside of the wing, while the male has reddish bands. The male is blue on the upper side and the female is brownish. The specimens from the Northeast appear to be more darkly pigmented than that Bangalore ones."
The species is protected under Schedule II, in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
