Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2018 | 10(2): 11348–11350

 

 

 

 

 

A record of Blue Posy Drupadia scaeva cyara (Hewitson, 1878) (Lycaenidae: Theclinae: Theclini) from Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh, India

 

Gaurab Nandi Das 1, Subrata Gayen 2 & Rohit Kumar Jaiswal 3

 

1,2,3 Zoological Survey of India, Prani Vigyan Bhawan, M-Block, New Alipore, Kolkata, West Bengal 700053, India

1 gaurab68nandidas@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 gayensubrata89@gmail.com, 3 rohitjaiswal013@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

doi: http://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3381.10.2.11348-11350|  ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:CF4ACB80-3100-4C37-B794-41473B52B87C

 

Editor: Sanjay Sondhi, Titli Trust, Dehradun, India.                Date of publication: 26 February 2018 (online & print)

 

Manuscript details: Ms # 3381 | Received 28 February 2017 | Final received 16 November 2017 | Finally accepted 06 February 2018

 

Citation: Das, G.N., S. Gayen, & R.K. Jaiswal (2018). A record of Blue Posy Drupadia scaeva cyara (Hewitson, 1878) (Lycaenidae: Theclinae: Theclini) from Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 10(2): 11348–11350; http://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3381.10.2.11348-11350

 

Copyright: © Das et al. 2018. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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.

 

Funding: National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS), G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment & Sustainable Development (GBPIHED) and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) (Reg no: NMHS/2015-16/HF03/03).

 

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the Director, Zoological Survey of India for the opportunity and encouragement. We are also thankful to Dr. Vikas Kumar for his valuable suggestions. Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department is acknowledged for providing necessary permission to conduct field work. We would also like to thank Isaac Kehimkar and James John Young (Lepidopteran society of Hong Kong) for their expertise in identification.

 

 

 

Drupadia Moore, 1884 is a widely-distributed Indo-oriental genus and ranges from the northeastern Himalaya to the Philippines (Cowan 1974).  The genus Drupadia consists of 12 species, of which only D. scaeva (Hewitson, 1863) is known from mainland India (Savela 2016).  D. scaeva includes four subspecies, of which only one, D. s. cyara (Hewitson, 1878) is reported from India.  The other three subspecies of D. scaeva are confined to Indo-China and the Malayan region: D. s. cooperi (Tytler, 1940) (northern Myanmar; northern Thailand); D. s. melisa (Hewitson, 1869) (southern Myanmar); D. s. scaeva (Hewitson, 1863) (Malayan Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo) (Cowan 1974).  In 1878, Hewitson described a female specimen of cyara from Darjeeling under the genus Myrina Fabricius, 1807 as Myrina cyara, but the detailed morphology of the holotype was redescribed by de Nicˇville in 1890 under the genus Biduanda Distant, 1884.  Later on, a male specimen was reported in DudgeonÕs collection from Bhutan (Riley & Godfrey 1921).  As per Evans (1932), the status of D. s. cyara is very rare and it is distributed across Sikkim to northern Myanmar.  Eventually, in 1974, Cowan reviewed the genus Drupadia and included cyara as a subspecies of Drupadia scaeva.  He reported two male specimens from Sikkim (Gangtok) in EliotÕs collection made in 1934.  Recently, Varshney & Smetacek (2015) stated its distribution from Sikkim to Arunachal Pradesh.  There have been no confirmed sightings of the subspecies from Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern Himalaya, however, till date.

A single female individual of Drupadia scaeva cyara was recorded and photographed (Image 1 & 2) on 12 December 2016 at 12:21hr near the village Atali (28.535350000N & 95.695833330E; 692m), Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh (Fig. 1).  The individual was sighted in sub-tropical, broad-leaved evergreen forest, where it was basking at a height of about 3m from the ground.

Drupadia scaeva cyara is morphologically distinguished from other D. scaeva subspecies by whitish ground colour with irregular chocolate markings and a prominent chocolate spot in forewing cell on the under side, among both the sexes.  In females, the wing is dark brown in colour and a distinct orange discal patch on the upper side of the forewing differentiates the sexes (Evans 1932; Cantlie 1963).

The state of Arunachal Pradesh, located in northeastern Himalaya, one of IndiaÕs biodiversity hotspots, is home to approximately 700 butterfly species (Singh & Das 2016).  A detailed literature review on butterflies of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim (Hewitson 1862–1878; de Nicˇville 1890, 1894; South 1913; Evans 1914, 1932; Betts 1950; Cantlie 1963; Arora & Mondal 1981; Bhattacharya 1985; dÕAbrera 1986; Gupta & Shukla 1988; Haribal 1992; Borang et al. 2008; Gogoi 2012; Sarma et al. 2012; Sondhi & Kunte 2014, 2016; Singh 2015, 2017; Kehimkar 2016; Singh & Das 2016) revealed no published record of Drupadia scaeva cyara from India since 1934.  The current record confirms its distribution from Arunachal Pradesh and is the first record in India after 83 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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