Inventory of Butterfly Species in Belauri Municipality,Kanchanpur, Nepal

Abstract

Butterflies are the large coloured scaly winged creatures, marvelous shapes, having a conspicuous fluttering and graceful flight which give pleasure to everyone. The present study was conducted to explore the butterflies diversity in Belauri Municipality, Kanchanpur, Sudur Paschim Province, Nepal. The field work was carried from March-April (Pre-monsoon) and September-October (Post-monsoon) 2022 in three different habitats viz. forest, grassland and agricultural area. Random three plots had been made in agricultural land and grassland of size 50 m X 50 m, 100 m apart. Line transect method had been used in forest area to collect the data of butterfly. All together 745 individuals representing 39 species belonging to 26 genera under four families were identified. Nymphalidae contributed 23 species (59%) followed by Pieridae 10 species (26%) and Papilionidae each with four species (10%) and Lycaenidae with two species (5%). Shannon-Weiner diversity index (H’) was 3.29 and Pielou’s species evenness (J) was 0.89 in the study area. Among 39 species,18 species were found as very common, 9 species found as common and 12 species found as rare. Butterfly diversity were the highest in grasslands areas (42%) followed by forest (30%) and agricultural areas (28%). Sorensen's similarity index is maximum between grassland and agricultural area was 0.3818 followed by forest and grassland 0.3036 and least between agricultural and forest area 0.2857. Butterfly Evenness was found highest in Post-monsoon season (0.88) than Pre-monsoon season (0.87) but number of individuals was recorded higher in Pre-monsoon (390) than Post-monsoon (355). The result of this study could be the baseline for further research on butterflies in the Belauri Municipality.