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