Reports of new larval host plants for butterflies Virachola isocrates (Fabricius, 1793) and Junonia orithya (Linnaeus, 1758) from Bankura, West Bengal, India

An updated checklist of the butterfly fauna of Ajodhya Hills, Purulia, West Bengal, India along with new distribution records

“…The present study on the butterfly diversity of Ajodhya Hills, West Bengal reported 143 butterflies including 86 newly reported butterfly species from the study area which is the highest number of recorded butterfly species from an area in the plateau region of West Bengal (Samanta et al, 2017;Das, 2018;Dwari and Mondal, 2020;Mukherjee and Mondal, 2020). A good species to genera ratio of 1.50 was observed which indicates the good health and distribution of several host plants and nectaring plants in the study area (Kunte, 2000;Öckinger et al, 2006;Mukherjee and Ghosh, 2018). High richness was recorded in the families Nymphalidae and Lycaenidae, which is similar to previous studies on butterfly diversity from the state (Samanta et al, 2017;Das, 2018;Mahata et al, 2020;Mukherjee and Mondal, 2020) During the study period, the authors encountered multiple issues which could be major concerns for these butterflies in the future.…”

“…Butterflies play an important role in understanding local environmental health because they are very sensitive to climatic changes and that is why they are considered good ecological indicators (Kunte, 2000;Posa and Sodhi, 2006;Bonebrake et al, 2010). A good number of butterflies in a place indicates good floral diversity in the area as different butterfly species use different plants as their host plant (Öckinger et al, 2006;Mukherjee and Ghosh, 2018).…”

A preliminary checklist of larval host plants of butterflies of Bankura and Purulia districts of West Bengal, India

“…Some remarkable study has been carried out in these two districts of West Bengal. A new larval host plant of Papilio crino (Fabricius) was reported by Mukherjee and Ghosh (2018). Red Helen Papilio helenus (Linnaeus) was reported for the first time from Bankura district by Mukherjee (2019).…”

“…A checklist of 117 butterfly species was established by Mukherjee and Mondal (2020) and new larval host plants for three butterflies were reported by . Recently, new larval host plants of Virachola isocrates (Fabricius) and Junonia orithya (Linnaeus) were reported by Mukherjee (2022a), two new larval host plant of Leptosia nina (Fabricius) and Rapala manea (Hewitson) were reported by Mukherjee (2022b), and three new larval host plants were newly reported by Banerjee et al (2023) from Bankura district. On the other side, a preliminary checklist of butterflies of Baghmundi in Purulia was reported by Samanta et al (2017).…”