DIVERSITY OF PAPILONID BUTTERFLIES IN THE INDIRA GANDHI WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, WESTERN GHATS, SOUTHERN INDIA

摘要

Butterflies are among the most easily recognizable of all animals. They are instantly familiar and also universally popular. Their wings, unlike those of most other insects, are colorful, opaque and are of characteristic shapes. The development of color, the range, diversity, brilliance and the kaleidoscopic assortment of patterns exhibited by butterflies is unrivalled anywhere in the animal kingdom, except possibly by the birds. Butterflies are truly the "jewels of creation." Butterflies are typically active during the day and because they are so skilled in flight they have achieved an almost world-wide distribution, though as with most animal groups (particularly coldblooded ones) there is a greater diversity to be found in the tropics (Mathew, 2001). Unfortunately, butterflies are threatened by habitat destruction and fragmentation almost everywhere (Mathew, 2001).