Final notes on the identification and misidentification of butterflies
of the Garo Hills
Krushnamegh Kunte 1,2, Sanjay Sondhi 2,3, GauravAgavekar1,2, Rohan Lovalekar 2 & Kedar Tokekar 2
1 National Centerfor Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, GKVK, Bellary
Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560065, India; 2 Indian Foundation for
Butterflies, Bengaluru; 3 Titli Trust,
Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
krushnamegh@ncbs.res.in, krushnamegh@ifoundbutterflies.org (corresponding author)
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3856.5019-20 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0375E5D6-4E43-446E-A3E9-9130C3055054
Date of publication: 26 November 2013 (online & print)
Manuscript
details: Ms #
o3856 | Received 21 November 2013
Citation: Kunte, K., S. Sondhi, G. Agavekar, R. Lovalekar & K. Tokekar (2013). Final notes on the identification and
misidentification of butterflies of the Garo Hills. Journal
of Threatened Taxa 5(15): 5019–5020; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3856.5019-20
Copyright: © Kunte et al. 2013. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 UnportedLicense. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this
article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate
credit to the authors and the source of publication.
We are glad that Gogoi’sbook review and the rejoinder are attracting much needed attention to the
identification and taxonomic status of Indian butterflies. We have explained our identifications in
our previous response; here we will only briefly attend to points raised in Gogoi’s rejoinder.
Gogoi has produced a partial seasonal form of Jamides pura,
claiming that this is the dry season form of pura. However, this is one variation among
the seasonal forms of pura. Seasonal forms of puramatching our Garo Hills male, of which we had checked
the upperside and confirmed the diagnostic features,
are now available on the Butterflies of India website
(http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/228-jamides/jamides-pura).
Distinguishing features on the undersides of Melanitis leda,M. phedima and M. ziteniusmentioned by Gogoi neither conform to Evans’s key nor
to variation well-established from various important pictorial guides and
taxonomic books (cited in our previous response). Evans’s key to the dry season
forms of these species is highly inadequate, and it is a challenge to anybody
to accurately distinguish between these seasonal forms using undersides and
Evans’s key alone. Identification
of the dry season forms of these species is best done with close inspection of
upper and undersides of adults, early life stages (eggs and caterpillars of phedima and zitenius are quite distinct; see
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/427-melanitis/melanitis-phedima and http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/427-melanitis/melanitis-zitenius),
and genitalia. Relying purely on external morphology of adults will lead to some
uncertainty in species identity.
Gogoi’s claims about sexual forms and identification ofTarucus are incorrect. We have
discussed this in our previous response, here we will only point out for the
record that what he believes are male and female of Tarucus indica(Image 1) are actually T. venosus. Reference
images of both sexes of T. indica and T. venosus are now available online
(http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/250-tarucus/tarucus-venosus and
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/250-Tarucus/Tarucus-indica). KT’s image from the GaroHills closely matches the phenotype and description of male T. venosus. We also point out once again that “Tarucus theophrastus indica” is a long outdatedscientific name combination for indica.
We are well aware of the correctly identified
specimens of Neptis nambaillustrated on Yutaka Inayoshi’s website. Our previous comments were based not
only on these specimens but also on dozens of specimens of N. namba and N. ananta from
the Natural History Museum, London, including the types of both the species
(included in our previous response and on the species pages: http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/153-Neptis/Neptis-ananta
and http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/153-Neptis/Neptis-namba). It is evident from the page of N. namba that there is considerable variation in the
saturation of red-orange discal bands and white cilia
in this species, and that the type of N. ananta ochracea also has white cilia, especially on the
underside of forewing. Our point
about the caution required to distinguish between
these two species and the overlap in their wing patterns remains. As we acknowledged in our previous
response, the image used in our book may well be N. namba,
but without images of the underside, we cannot be absolutely certain. We await for
further sightings of this Neptis species pair
from the Garo Hills to confirm or change our
tentative identification.
Images of the museum specimens of Seseria sambara andSeseria dohertyi are
now available online
(http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/358-seseria/seseria-sambara and
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/358-seseria/seseria-dohertyi). Readers can compare the images to
understand the distinguishing features between these two species. According to Evans in 1949, which was a
comprehensive update on the Hesperiidae in his
previous book in 1932, and the museum specimens that we have seen, the bluish
tinge at the base of the hindwing underside of some
specimens is not a criterion to distinguish between this species pair.
Gogoi’s conception of the color“ferruginous” is incorrect, and he has misidentified our male Matapa cresta as
female M. druna. KK’s identification of M. cresta male was based on investigation of the male
brand (media codes ag592 and av691, which was the same individual, on
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/301-matapa/matapa-cresta). The brand of this male specimen matches
closely with the brands seen in museum specimens (see the above link) as well
as the sketches of brands given by de Jong. As far as we are concerned, both the
specimens identified and presented in his rejoinder by Gogoiare M. cresta, one more prominently marked
than the other. However, Gogoi has correctly
identified one of them as M. cresta and
misidentified the other as M. druna. The brand on the male
shown in his image (provided to us by Gogoi for reference
but not included in his response)matches the brand of cresta, not druna. Similarly, we believe that our identification of M. sasivarna matches the description of Evans, de Jong and
museum specimens. Images of museum specimens of Indian Matapa,
including males showing brands, are now online (http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/tx/301-Matapa-dp3).
We
appreciate Gogoi’s adamant belief in his (mis)identifications. However, we think that we have provided
sufficient evidence to support our identifications.