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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