List of butterflies of India

The following is a list of the butterflies of India.

India has extremely diverse terrain, climate and vegetation, which comprises extremes of heat cold, desert and jungle, of low-lying plains and the highest mountains, of dryness and dampness, islands and continental areas, widely varying flora, and sharply marked seasons.[1] India forms a large part of the Indomalayan biogeographical zone; many of the floral and faunal forms show Malayan affinities with some taxa being unique to the Indian region. In addition, India hosts three of the world's biodiversity hotspots: the Western Ghats, the Eastern Himalayas, and the hilly ranges bordering India and Myanmar, each having numerous endemic species. Accordingly, India's diverse and varied fauna include a rich variety of butterflies and moths. Brigadier William Harry Evans recorded approximately 1439 species of butterfly from British India, including Ceylon and Burma.[2] After 1947, the rise of several new nations led to a reduction of the area forming part of India proper, and the number of species has been noted to be an estimated 1318 species.[3]

  1. ^ Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd ed.). Mumbai, India: Bombay Natural History Society. p. 1.
  2. ^ Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd ed.). Mumbai, India: Bombay Natural History Society. p. 23.
  3. ^ Cotton, Adam & Fric, Zdenek & Jit Gupta, Inder & Van Gasse, Paul & Inayoshi, Yutaka & Sin Khoon, Khew & G Kirton, Laurence & Larsen, Torben & Markhasiov, Maxim & Majumdar, Mridula & Pequin, Olivier & Rieger, Jiri & Motoki, Saito & P Smith, Colin & K Varshney, Rajendra & Smetacek, Peter. (2015). A Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India. 10.13140/RG.2.1.3966.2164.