Butterflies of Mahimatgad

Butterflies of Mahimatgad

Ratnagiri District, Maharashtra

Being in a business of adventure tourism the greatest advantage is that, I can reach such places where others people even don’t dream of!!! Being a butterflier and trekker together has enabled me to visit beautiful and remote locations and assess its natural beauty in a scientific way.

Mahimatgad is one of such places. Situated about 50Km to the east of Sangameshwar (40 Km south of Chiplun, 250Km from Pune) in Ratnagiri district, it shows combination of Kokan beauty and Sahyadri crest elegance. This fort is situated on an offshoot mountain range from main Sahyadri directing west. Because of this the top of fort lies about 610m from the sea level consisting flora of typical Sahyadri crest forest and at the same time the base of fort lies in Kokan showing characteristics of typical Kokan evergreen forest.

This fort was actually a guard to an important trade route “Kundi Ghat” which was used to transport goods from Sangameshwar to Malkapur region. Shri Shivaji Maharaj won this fort and then it remained in possession of Maratha’s for more than 150 years when finally British conquered it in 1817 and blasted all the important structures on the fort. This small fort which was used to be manned by only small force, not exceeding 1500 people has remained obscure and rarely visited since then. Even local people rarely go to visit this fort; there is no reason for them to go there. But because of all this reasons this fort and surrounding jungles are harboring wide variety of flora and fauna.

I visited this place on a pleasant day of 4^thunded by good greenery. Crossing houses we started climbing the mountain along step farms. From the first step we started encountering variety of butterflies. It began with crows, tigers, common mormons, pansy, castors flying around. We gained height and reached to a dirt road. This road was supposed to lead us till the base of fort. It was about 6Km walk and forest was all around. Because of the opening of the road we were able to site flying butterflies and birds perfectly. There were several water channels which we were crossing befo

re reaching the base of the fort and each channel was adding into the checklist. In such water channels we encountered with chestnut sailor, common rustic, common small flats.

The entire road was filled with different grasses and because of that we were able to record several species from Lycaen

idae like zebra blue, tiny grass blue, common cerulean etc. on the road itself. Emigrants and grass yellows were all around us. After each small interval of about 10 minutes a blue Mormon was flying over us.

Finally we left the road and started the actual climb of the fort through a canopy forest

and thick undergrowth and here we started encountering Hedge blues, pioneers, and few skipper

s. We were able to identify most of the skippers but few remained nameless!!

Four rings and five rings were now all around us. Jezebel was popping out
of the vegetation wall and disappearing into it. We

crossed the walls of fort and entered into it. It led us into entirely different vegetation. That part of fort was completely packed with simply humongous growth of “Carvy.” The girth of those shrubs was so large that it was capable to support a heavy person like mysel

f. It was robust and

seemed to be unbreakable. This carvy vegetation harbored some species of butterflies, which we were unable to spot before on the climb. The common evening brown and the great evening brown were hiding in the litter under the shrubby growth. Along with that I could spot spotted small flat, tailed jay, lime butterfly chasing each other.

Mahimatgad is full of impenetrable bush but still one small ro

ute reaches the summit and we followed that route to the top. There is a flagstaff situated on the top and grassy patch around it. The whole area on the top is approximately 20ft by 20ft and here I saw a butterfly that really made my day. Among lime butterflies and few tailed jays, which were running after each other, I spotted one butterfly having slightly different flight pattern. But as they were fully charged with noon
sun, not a single butterfly was ready to take a break. Finally after long follow up of the rand

om flight it finally settled on the flagstaff and I was able to take a snap of that, and that butterfly was Black Rajah.

With that we concluded our climb and started return journey. The return journey was as interesting as

was the climb. While looking downwards there was not a single place,which was having any colour except shades of green. The hot sun revealed the great orange tip and white orange tip along with gulls and pioneers.

By the time we came down to village it started becoming cloudy on the west and that revealed another good but secretive butterfly. We were almost in the village and some insect came in an extremely high speed and settled on a shadowed wall. The flight itself revealed that it must be some skipper. I got geared up, climbed the wall carefully and finally when that butterfly was in the range of my camera took a snap. When I checked the snap…it was identified as Giant Redeye. Its not common to find Giant redeye so north in the Western Ghats and hence I was really glad that I found redeye.

With that we left the village and started return journey with the mixed feeling of joy and sorrow. After spending 2 days in such a beautiful region it was obvious. But I always get such feeling after visiting such region. These places are visited so seldom and to that visit of real nature lover is extremely rare that nobody knows how many surprises this place has in its store. Studying these obscure places might reveal new species of plants, amphibians and reptiles. It might give some surprising readings in case of snakes, birds and butterflies. These are the remaining hot spots of Western Ghats and they must be protected.

Checklist from Mahimatgad outing

No	Family	Name of Butterfly	Scientific Name	Number of sightings
1	Papilionidae	Common Mormon	Papilio polytes	50-100
2		Blue Mormon	Papilio polymnestor	50-100
3		Red Helen	Papilio helenus	30-50
4		Tailed Jay	Graphium Agamemnon	5-10
5		Crimson Rose	Pachliopta hector	10-20
6		Common Rose	Pachliopta aristolochiae	10-20
7		Common Bluebottle	Graphium sarpedon	1-5
8		Lime butterfly	Papilio demoleus	5-10
9	Pieridae	Common Emigrant	Catopsilia pomona	50-100
10		Common Jezebel	Delias eucharis	5-10
11		Common Gull	Cepora nerissa	30-50
12		Pioneer or Caper White	Anaphaeis aurota	30-50
13		Psyche	Leptosia nina	2
14		Common grass yellow	Eurema hecabe	Above 100
15		Great orange tip	Hebomoea glauceppe	2
16		White orange tip	Ixias Marianne	1
17	Nymphalidae	Common evening brown	Melanitis leda	5-10
18		Great Evening brown	Melanitis zitenius	1
19		Common Bush brown	Mycalesis perseus	1
20		Common four ring	Ypthima ypthimoides	20-30
21		Common five ring	Ypthima baldus	20-30
22		Common/Stripped Tiger	Danus genutia	10-20
23		Plain Tiger	Danus chrysippus	30-50
24		Blue Tiger	Tirumala limniace	30-50
25		Dark Blue tiger	Tirumala septentrionis	10-20
26		Glassy tiger	Parantica aglea	50-100
27		Common sailor	Neptis hylas	50-100
28		Chestnut streaked sailor	Neptis jumbah	1
29		Common Rustic	Cupha erymanthis	5-10
30		Black Rajah	Charaxes dolon	2
31		Common castor	Ariadne merione	5-10
32		Tawny coster	Acraea violae	2
33		Danaid eggfly	Hypolimnas misippus	10-20
34		Great eggfly	Hypolimnas bolina	10-20
35		Common crow	Euploea core	50-100
36		Lemon Pansy	Junonia lemonias	1-5
37		Blue Pansy	Junonia orithya	5-10
38		Yellow Pansy	Junonia hierta	1
39		Grey Pansy	Junonia atlites	3
40		Peacock Pansy	Junonia almanac	1
41		Chocolate Pansy	Precis iphita	30-50
42	Lycaenidae	Common pierrot	Castalius rosimon	20-30
43		Red pierrot	Talicada nyseus	5-10
44		Rounded pierrot	Tarucus nara	10-20
45		Dark grass blue	Zizeeria karsandra	Above 30
46		Tiny grass blue	Zizula hylax	Above 30
47		Indian cupid	Everes lacturnus	10-20
48		Common cerulean	Jamides celeno	Above 30
49		Zebra blue	Leptotes plinius	10-20
50		Common hedge blue	Actolepis puspa	5-10
51	Hesperiidae	Giant Red eye	Gangara thyrsis	1
52		Tamil grass dart	Taractrocera ceramas	1-5
53		Common small flat	Sarangesa dasahara	5-10
54		Spotted small flat	Sarangesa purendra	5-10
55		Dark Palm Dart	Telicota ancilla	1

Pinakin Karve

Proud to be a butterflier

pinakin.karve@gmail.com

www.trekdi.com

Butterfly Road kills

Butterfly Road kills

Nannaj Wild life Sanctuary

Solapur, Maharashtra

With the receding rains in the months of August and September, butterfly activity is boosted in southern India. I always used to visit different places in Western Ghats but this time I decided to visit an entirely different Ecosystem.

To the north of Solapur (about 260 Km from Pune in South-East direction) in the endless grasslands there rests a unique Sanctuary; known as Nannaj Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary is famous for one of the rarest bird in India “The Great Indian Bustard.”

I did not have lot of days to spare so it was quick one-day visit on 11^th September 2007. I didn’t know that this was going to be another 9/11 incidences. In order to gain freedom of traveling and stopping anywhere at will I decided to ride there by Bike. I departed around 6am from Pune and in less than 3 ½ Hrs covering about 260Km; at about 9.30am I was in the vicinity of Nannaj.

Road from Solapur to Nannaj is a pleasant ride. Good road with no ups and downs. You can speed at your will. The roadside was covered with cassia spp., acacia spp. and mimosaceae trees. Along with these indigenous trees there were tree plantations of exotic species like eucalyptus, glyricedia, Australian acacia. In the route I could see few private teak plantations too. There were scanty patches of agriculture, mainly consisting of sugarcane and in few patches onion, potato etc. Some patches were having floriculture. Along the roadside there were variety of herbs and shrubs; dominant among those were leucas ciliata, smithia hirsute, cassia auriculata, commelina forsskalaei. And lastly there were at least 15 different grass species, which I could distinguish but couldn’t identify.

In spite of low rain and hot sun in that region, it houses tremendous biodiversity and I started to get glimpses of that. Hundreds of Common and mottled emigrant were flying around. The grass yellows were beyond the range of count. Common crow, common Mormon, common and crimson rose were lying around in dozens. Along with these lycaenidae members like Pierrots, Ceruleans, Cupids, Babul blues and Grass blues were flying from flower to flower. Other Pieridae members like Albatross, Common Jezebel, Common Gull, Pioneers and Jokers were showing the dominance of Pieridae family in that region.

I might have traveled about 3Km from Solapur towards Nannaj and I saw first victim on the road. It was half dead common rose butterfly lying on the center of the road trying to fly…but jut fluttering!! I stopped my bike and ran towards it in order to rescue that butterfly before any vehicle could crush that. It was a full size common rose butterfly whose abdomen was smashed because of its collision with the fast moving vehicle.

Then I looked around…hundreds of butterflies were flying around and there were about 1-2 speeding four wheelers passing per minute. I started thinking on that and it occurred to me that this might not be the only case. There might be several such cases ahead. I was fully equipped with camera, pen & notepad, binocular, hence I decided to take systematic notes of these road kills and ratio of those with the number of butterflies of each species flying around.

It is exact 15Km from Solapur to Nannaj village. I had already covered 3Km. So I decided to sample road kills by transact method of the remaining distance. Total distance of transact was 12 Km and time was between 10.30am to 11.15am. I decided to travel on my bike with the speed of 20Km/Hr and stop wherever it is necessary to take records. With this methodology I carried out further experiment and got the following

No	Family	Name of the Butterfly	Found dead/ mortally injured	Approx no of butterflies recorded flying
1	Pieridae	Common/mottled Emigrants (Catopsilia pomona & Catopsilia florella )	38	Above 200
2	Pieridae	Grass Yellow (Eurema hecabe)	12	Above 200
3	Pieridae	Pioneer Anaphaeis aurota	2	10-20 sightings
4	Pieridae	Common Gull (Cepora nerissa)	3	10-20 sightings
5	Pieridae	Albatross (Appias albino)	0	10-20 sightings
6	Pieridae	Orange tip (Ixias spp.)	0	5-10 sightings
7	Nymphalidae	Joker	0	20-50 sightings
8	Nymphalidae	Common Crow (Euploea core)	17	50-100 sightings
9	Nymphalidae	Tigers (Danaus spp.)	0	30-50 sightings
10	Nymphalidae	Pansy (lemon/blue/yellow) (Junonia lemonias) (Junonia orithya) (Junonia hierta)	0	50-100 sightings
11	Lycaenidae	Blues	0	Above 100
12	Papilionidae	Common/crimson Rose (Pachliopta aristolochiae) (Pachliopta hector)	24	30-50 sightings
			96

These were really alarming results, particularly in case of “Rose butterflies.” The sighting to kill ratio for them was almost 1:2. Means for every two sightings of rose butterfly flying around, one was getting killed in road accident.

In the entire line transact of just 12 Km I had seen 96 butterfly road kills in less than 1 Hr period. If we average out then it becomes 8 kills/Km. considering the approximate traffic on that road about 90 vehicles an hour, this mortality rate is pretty high.

After this incident I really started thinking on how these kills can be reduced!! Restriction on speeding around sanctuary, public awareness, wire mesh hedge along roads and hedge plantations are some ideas to reduce the kills. But till date I have completely failed in finding any solid solution on this problem. Perhaps more study is necessary before reaching some conclusion and finding solution on the problem.

Pinakin Karve

Proud to be a butterfly chaser

pinakin.karve@gmail.com