List of swallowtail family butterflies that are found in India
This is a list of the butterflies of family
Papilionidae (superfamily
Papilionoidea), or the swallowtails, which are found in India. This family of large and beautiful butterflies is well represented with 89 species found within Indian borders.[1] Two of the three papilionid subfamilies are represented in India, namely, the
Parnassiinae or Apollos, with 19 species, and the
Papilioninae or swallowtails, with 70 species.
The area of India falls in the
Indomalayan realm, except for the Himalayas above and beyond the foothills adjoining the
Indo-Gangetic Plains, and which fall in the
Palearctic realm,[2] resulting in increased diversity of papilionid butterflies, especially the Parnassiini or snow Apollos, all species of which are Palearctic.
Indian swallowtails are spread over all the
biomes/
ecoregions of India. The Malabar banded peacock (Papilio buddha) and the Malabar banded swallowtail (Papilio liomedon) fly at sea level while the Apollos (Parnassius species), are to be found only in the highest alpine meadows of the
Himalayas. Some species such as the common Mormon (Papilio polytes) and the blue Mormon (Papilio polymnestor) fly at ground level whereas others, such as the tailed jay (Graphium agamemnon) are normally found flying high in the forest canopy. The lime butterfly (Papilio demoleus) is a creature of arid scrub-land, occasionally being spotted even in the
Thar Desert, while the tropical evergreen forests have their own representatives, such as the red Helen (Papilio helenus), the common bluebottle (Graphium cloanthus) and the Malabar raven (Papilio dravidarum).[3] Indian papilionids such as the common Mormon (Papilio polytes) and great Mormon (Papilio memnon) show
polymorphism with many
mimetic female forms.[4][5]
This list is based on A Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India by R. K. Varshney and Peter Smetacek (2015).[7]
Subfamily Papilioninae
The swallowtails are generally easily identified in the field by their large size, prominent markings, colour, patterns and variable wing and tail shape.
Tribe Troidini
Troides Huebner, [1819] – birdwings
The birdwings, as the Troides butterflies are called are large, yellow-and-black coloured butterflies, two species of which are found in the forests of the Himalayas and one species in the Western Ghats. These are the largest butterflies found in India.
The genera Losaria, Pachliopta and Byasa of the Indian Troidini are commonly called as the red-bodied swallowtails along with the Atrophaneura. They were formerly considered to be subgenera under genus Atrophaneura till several authorities elevated them to genus level in their publications (e.g. LepIndex; GLoBIS; Racheli & Cotton (2010)).[8][9][10][11] These butterflies sequester toxins from plants and are inedible or poisonous to predators. They also have warning colouration, a phenomenon also known as
aposematism. The red-bodied swallowtails are involved in
Batesian mimicry complexes as aposematic models which are mimicked by edible species.
Atrophaneura Reakirt, [1865] – batwings
Red-bodied swallowtails with black wings hat are found in low elevation forests along the Himalayas and the Northeast of India.
Black-coloured red-bodied swallowtails with elongated wings, prominent white and red spots, and tails that are found in low elevation forests along the Himalayas and the Northeast of India.
Red-bodied swallowtails commonly found all over India (except for the endemic Malabar rose), which serve as aposematic models for Papilio polytes in Batesian mimicry complex.
Black-bodied swallowtails, often distinctively marked, some widely distributed, which are edible and form
Batesian mimicry complexes with
danaines or
red-bodied swallowtails. Some species are
polymorphic, mostly in the female forms.
Papilio (Chilasa) – mimes
Medium-sized tailless swallowtail butterflies which mimic the
milkweed butterflies, which they fly alongside, both in appearance and methods of flight. Except for the Common Mime which is also found in peninsular India, they are confined to the lower Himalayas and Northeast India.
Large, tailed, black butterflies with prominent yellow patch on upper hindwing markings, which occur along the low elevation forests of the Himalayas, the Western Ghats and some peninsular Indian forests.
Large, tailless, black butterflies with blue and white markings, which occur along the low elevation forests of the Himalayas, the Western Ghats and some peninsular Indian forests. Despite the name, only the great Mormon is polymorphic.
Large tailless swallowtails which are black above with no white marking and which do not have basal red markings below. Found in Himayas and Northeast India in low elevation jungles.
Large strong-flying black butterflies with distinctive colourful markings, most species of which occur along the low elevation forests of the Himalayas while a few species occur in the Western Ghats and some peninsular Indian forests.
These butterflies, formerly Graphium, are now divided into two genera Pathysa and Pazala. They are large white butterflies with black bars in the cells of the forewings, and the hindwings each bearing a long sword-like tail. They are butterflies of hilly forests from the Himalayas to the Northeast, except for the fivebar swordtail which also flies in the Western Ghats and the spot swordtail which is also found in peninsular India and the Indo-Gangetic plains.
Lamproptera or dragontails, are small swallowtail butterflies with large tails found in the tropical and subtropical forests of Northeast India, and further East.
The Kaiser-i-Hind is a rare species of swallowtail butterfly found from Nepal and north India eastwards to north Vietnam. The common name literally means "Emperor of India", and it is much sought after by butterfly collectors for its beauty and rarity.
Large sombre-coloured swallowtails with triangular forewings with concave outer margins, sinuously margined hindwing and long outwardly-curved spatulate tail. Found in low elevation forests along the central and eastern Himalayas and the Northeast.
The Parnassiinae include about 50 medium-sized, white or yellow high-altitude butterflies that are distributed across Asia, Europe and North America, of which 19 species fly in India.
Tribe Zerynthiini
Bhutanitis Atkinson, 1873 – Bhutan glory
The genus Bhutanitis contains large butterflies that are black with thin white stripes above, have red and yellow tornal patches on the hindwing, and a number of tails, which are found in the region of Bhutan, Northeast India, Myanmar, Thailand and South China.
The Apollos, genus Parnassius are high altitude palearctic butterflies that are different in appearance from other swallowtails, being of moderate size, with white ground colour, and spotted with red, black and blue.
^Evans (1932) states, in a table on pg 23, the number of papilionids in the Indian subcontinent as 90; 15 species being found in
Ceylon, 19 in
South India, 6 in
Baluchistan, 11 in
Chitral, 31 in the western
Himalayas, 69 in
Northeast India, 50 in southern
Myanmar and 13 in the
Andaman and
Nicobar islands. Wynter-Blyth (1957) gives a modified version of the same table on p. 12, where the overall number of species is 94; with differences being in total number of species for Northeast
Himalayas (62) and
Myanmar (66). The present list is based on the IUCN red data book, with corrections made by subsequent editors especially in the
Parnassiinae. Kunte (2000) on p. 55 mentions a total of 107 species with 19 in peninsular
India. Varshney & Smetacek (2015), which this article follows, lists 89 species.
^Clarke, C. A.; Sheppard, P. M. & Thornton, I. W. B. "The Genetics of the Mimetic Butterfly Papilio memnon L." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London. (B – Biological Sciences) 22 August 1968 vol. 254 no. 791 37–89.
Abstract. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
^Clarke, C. A. & Sheppard, P. M. "The Genetics of the Mimetic Butterfly Papilio polytes L." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London. (Series B, Biological Sciences) Vol. 263, No. 855 (16 March 1972), pp. 431–458.
Abstract. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
^Racheli, T.; Cotton, A.M. (2010). Guide to the Butterflies of the Palearctic Region: Papilionidae part II,Subfamily Papilioninae, Tribe Troidini. Milano: Omnes Artes.
^White, A. (1842): Notice of two New Species of Papilio from Penang, presented to the British Museum by Sir Wm. Norris. The Entomologist 1 (17), pp. 280.
[1]Archived 3 March 2016 at the
Wayback Machine.
^Xu ZB, Wang YY, Condamine FL, Cotton AM, Hu SJ. Are the Yellow and Red Marked Club-Tail Losaria coon the Same Species?. Insects. 2020;11(6):392. Published 2020 Jun 24. doi:10.3390/insects11060392
^Gabriel, A.G. (1942). "A new species of Bhutanitis (Lep. Papilionidae)". The Entomologist. 75: 189.
Further reading
Chattopadhyay, Jagannath (2007). Swallowtail Butterflies, Biology and Ecology of a few Indian Species. Kolkata, India: Desh Prakashan.
ISBN978-81-905719-1-3.