Agartala: A rare species of butterfly has been sighted for the first time in Tripura during a survey in Sepahijala wildlife sanctuary. The species is identified as Banded Royal, Rachana jalindra indra.
There are no previous records of this beautiful butterfly being sighted here in the state.
The development was officially published in Munis Entomology and Zoology Journal, a reputed international scientific journal in its January edition.
The study titled as Rachana Jalindra Indra (Moore,[1844]) Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera: Lycaenidae): New Addition to the Butterfly Fauna of Tripura, had been collectively authored by Chiranjib Debnath, Suman Bhowmik, Rupali Biswas and Animesh Das.
“This species was recorded on 20.05.2021, during an opportunistic survey in Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary, Sepahijala district, Tripura, North-east India. This species is legally protected under schedule II of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972,” the study added.
It needs to be explained here that Schedule II of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 speaks about protection of wild animals which fall in the endangered category. These are highly protected and are prohibited from being hunted, poached, killed, or traded.
The study cited previous publications on the records of Butterfly sighting and maintained that none of that recorded Rachana jalindra during their intensive surveys.
“There are three subspecies of Rachana jalindra found in India viz.: R. j. macantia distributed from south-west India to Goa; R. j. tarpina distributed in the Andamans; and R. j. indra distributed from Orissa to lower West Bengal and Bangladesh. Central Nepal to Arunachal Pradesh, North-east India and Myanmar to Dawnas (Van Gasse, 2013; Varshney & Smetacek, 2015). Presently the subspecies R. j. indra is recorded from Assam (Gogoi, 2015; Sing et al., 2015;- Boruah & Das, 2017); Meghalaya (Acharjee & Devi, 2017); Jharkhand (Garg, 2020),” the study further added.
Describing the experience on first recording its presence, the researchers added: “During an opportunistic survey in Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary on 20.05.2021, one of the authors sighted a Lycaenid butterfly busking on bushes along a forest track (23°40’43” N & 91°19’15” E, elev. 48 m). He managed to take a single photograph of the butterfly before it finally escaped into the vegetation inside Sepahijala Botanical Garden. The identification of the species as Rachana jalindra indra was done by cross checking the documented photograph with the available taxonomic literature (Evans, 1932). This species is legally protected under schedule II of the Indian Wildlife (Protected) Act, 1972 (Anonymous, 1997).”
Rachana jalindra can be identified by the white underside with a broad chocolate discal band on the forewing. The white diffused area beyond the discal band on the forewing is more extensive. The wavy line above the tornus on the underside hindwing is quite separated from the tornal markings. Under hindwing tornal green scales more prominent (Evans, 1932), the study underscored.
This species is most similar to Charana mandarinus but the latter can be differentiated, with its yellowish underside and the discal band on forewing being ferruginous brown, confluent with paler ferruginous brown marginal area unlike Rachana jalindra. In addition, the tails in Charana mandarinus are doubled (12 mm) the size as in Rachana jalindra (6 mm) (Evans, 1932).
The present sighting of Rachana jalindra is significant as it updates the existing checklist of the butterfly fauna of Tripura and is also a part of extending the known distribution range of this species within the north-eastern belt of India from Assam to Tripura.
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