List of butterflies of India

The following is a list of the butterflies of India.

India has extremely diverse terrain, climate and vegetation, which comprises extremes of heat cold, desert and jungle, of low-lying plains and the highest mountains, of dryness and dampness, islands and continental areas, widely varying flora, and sharply marked seasons.^[1] India forms a large part of the Indomalayan biogeographical zone; many of the floral and faunal forms show Malayan affinities with some taxa being unique to the Indian region. In addition, India hosts three of the world's biodiversity hotspots: the Western Ghats, the Eastern Himalayas, and the hilly ranges bordering India and Myanmar, each having numerous endemic species. Accordingly, India's diverse and varied fauna include a rich variety of butterflies and moths. Brigadier William Harry Evans recorded approximately 1439 species of butterfly from British India, including Ceylon and Burma.^[2] After 1947, the rise of several new nations led to a reduction of the area forming part of India proper, and the number of species has been noted to be an estimated 1318 species.^[3]

Per-family lists

Six families of butterflies are represented in India. The quoted numbers of species per family are likely to evolve as a result of advances in taxonomy and in the collection of data regarding occurrence and distribution.

Papilionidae - swallowtail butterflies (84 species)
Hesperiidae - skipper butterflies (277 species)
- Coeliadinae (22 species)
- Pyrginae (51 species)
- Hesperiinae (133 species)
- Heteropterinae (1 species)
Pieridae - yellow and white butterflies (81 species)
Riodinidae - punches & judies (16 species)
Lycaenidae - blues, hairstreaks and gossamer-winged butterflies (318 species)
Nymphalidae - brush-footed butterflies (439 species)
- Danainae (26 species)
- Morphinae (20 species)
- Satyrinae (176 species)
- Limenitidinae (99 species)
- Libytheinae (3 species)
- Charaxinae (16 species)
- Calinaginae (3 species)
- Heliconiinae (27 species)
- Cyrestinae (10 species)
- Pseudergolinae (1 species)
- Biblidinae (4 species)
- Apaturinae (17 species)
- Nymphalinae (37 species)

Per-state lists

India has 28 states and 8 union territories. The list of butterflies for each state can be found using the index below:

States

Union territories:

References

^ Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd ed.). Mumbai, India: Bombay Natural History Society. p. 1.
^ Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd ed.). Mumbai, India: Bombay Natural History Society. p. 23.
^ Cotton, Adam & Fric, Zdenek & Jit Gupta, Inder & Van Gasse, Paul & Inayoshi, Yutaka & Sin Khoon, Khew & G Kirton, Laurence & Larsen, Torben & Markhasiov, Maxim & Majumdar, Mridula & Pequin, Olivier & Rieger, Jiri & Motoki, Saito & P Smith, Colin & K Varshney, Rajendra & Smetacek, Peter. (2015). A Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India. 10.13140/RG.2.1.3966.2164.

Other sources

Beccaloni, George; Scoble, Malcolm; Kitching, Ian; Simonsen, Thomas; Robinson, Gaden; Pitkin, Brian; Hine, Adrian; Lyal, Chris. "The Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex)". Natural History Museum, London. Retrieved 2016-10-15.
Collins, N. Mark; Morris, Michael G. (1985). Threatened Swallowtail Butterflies of the World: The IUCN Red Data Book. Gland & Cambridge: IUCN. ISBN 978-2-88032-603-6 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd ed.). Mumbai, India: Bombay Natural History Society.
Gay, Thomas; Kehimkar, Isaac David; Punetha, Jagdish Chandra (1992). Common Butterflies of India. Nature Guides. Bombay, India: World Wide Fund for Nature-India by Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195631647.
Haribal, Meena (1992). The Butterflies of Sikkim Himalaya and Their Natural History. Gangtok, Sikkim, India: Sikkim Nature Conservation Foundation.
Kunte, Krushnamegh (2000). Butterflies of Peninsular India. India, A Lifescape. Hyderabad, India: Universities Press. ISBN 978-8173713545.
Kehimkar, I. (2008) The Book of Indian Butterflies. Bombay Natural History Society and Oxford University Press, Mumbai, India.
Wynter-Blyth, Mark Alexander (1957). Butterflies of the Indian Region. Bombay, India: Bombay Natural History Society. ISBN 978-8170192329.