Observations of Papilionoidea (Lepidoptera) fauna from heterogeneous patches of Jhargram district with new distribution reports from West Bengal, India

Diversity and abundance of butterfly (Papilionoidea) species were studied intensively between January 2017 and December 2021 from six heterogeneous sites of the newly created Jhargram district in West Bengal state, India. A total of 142 species from all six butterfly families were recorded from the study sites, of which 45 belong to the family Lycaenidae, 42 to Nymphalidae, 29 to Hesperiidae, 14 from Pieridae, 11 from Papilionidae and 1 from Riodinidae. Thirteen of the species observed are new reports from the district. New distributional records of Deudorix epijarbas (Moore, [1858]), Notocrypta curvifascia (C. Felder and R. Felder, 1862) from the southern part of West Bengal are reported. Rachana jalindra (Horsfield, [1829]) is rediscovered from the southern part of West Bengal after a long period. Gangara thyrsis (Fabricius, 1775) is reported from this part of the state for only the second time. Additionally, Cupitha purreea (Moore, 1877), Gerosis bhagava (Moore, [1866]), Sarangesa dasahara Moore, [1866], Celaenorrhinus leucocera (Kollar, [1844]), Rapala pheretima (Hewitson, 1863), Athyma inara Westwood, 1850, Athyma selenophora (Kollar, [1844]) and Tanaecia lepidea (Butler, 1868) are among the other notable species which are reported for the first time from Jhargram district. The statistical analysis of the diversity and abundance of the study sites and the analysis of variance and rarefaction have been performed to study the β-diversity and compare the abundance of the sites in order to understand the heterogeneity of butterfly observations. The distribution by site of the species has also been studied.