ITANAGAR, 24 Oct: Researchers from Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and the Litin Community Conservation Society, Simong village, have documented six butterfly species previously unknown to India from the Simong community forest in Upper Siang district.
The new additions include Litin onyx (Horaga takanamii), narrow-banded royal (Dacalana vui), Tibetan duke (Euthalia zhaxidunzhui), Tibetan sergeant (Athyma yui), Tibetan junglequeen (Stichophthalma neumogeni renqingduojiei), and mountain columbine (Stiboges elodinia), one of the researchers, Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi, informed in a release.
The findings, published in the latest issue of Entomon, marked a major addition to the country’s butterfly fauna and underscore the Siang valley’s growing reputation as a biodiversity frontier in the eastern Himalayas.
The study, authored by Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi, Rajkamal Goswami, Seena Narayanan Karimbumkara, and Agur Litin, is based on photographic evidence from the community-conserved forests of Simong village in Upper Siang district.
Their fieldwork, carried out in 2024 as part of the ATREE’s Siang Valley Biodiversity Conservation Programme, resulted in the sighting of the six species never before recorded in India.
The expedition was led by local conservationist Agur Litin, who is also one of the co-authors of the paper.
Until now, these species were known only from Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and southeastern Tibet. Their sighting in Arunachal Pradesh significantly extends their known distribution range and strengthens the evidence of biogeographic continuity between the Metok region of Tibet and India’s Siang valley, both linked by the Yarlung Tsangpo or the Brahmaputra river.
“The Brahmaputra river appears to play a critical biogeographic role, facilitating faunal continuity between southeastern Tibet and eastern Arunachal,” the study noted.
In just seven days of surveys, the team recorded 90 butterfly species, underscoring how much remains undocumented in India’s eastern Himalayas.
“The documentation of six previously unrecorded species within a short one-month survey underscores the striking lack of lepidopteran surveys and conservation attention in the Indian eastern Himalayas,” the study observed.
“The discovery not only deepens India’s natural history but also reaffirms the vital role of local communities, such as the Litin clan of the Simong community in Siang valley, in protecting the last great wild landscapes of the eastern Himalayas,” the release said.
