Range Extension of the Lilac Silverline Apharifis Lilacinus to Southern Rajasthan and a Review of the Literature

PLATINUM The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservaton globally by publishing peer-reviewed artcles OPEN ACCESS online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All artcles published in JoTT are registered under Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License unless otherwise mentoned. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of artcles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Note Range extension of the Lilac Silverline Apharitis lilacinus to southern Rajasthan and a review of the literature K.S. Gopi Sundar, Swat Kitur, Vijay Kumar Koli & Utkarsh Prajapat 26 June 2020 | Vol. 12 | No. 9 | Pages: 16180–16182 DOI: 10.11609/jot.5800.12.9.16180-16182 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. The journal, the publisher, the host, and the part- Publisher & Host ners are not responsible for the accuracy of the politcal boundaries shown in the maps by the authors. Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 June 2020 | 12(9): 16180–16182 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.5800.12.9.16180-16182 #5800 | Received 23 February 2020 | Final received 29 April 2020 | Finally accepted 27 May 2020 N o t e Range extension of the Lilac Silverline Apharits lilacinus to southern Rajasthan and a review of the literature K.S. Gopi Sundar 1 , Swat Kitur 2 , Vijay Kumar Koli 3 & Utkarsh Prajapat 4 1,2 Nature Conservaton Foundaton, 1311, “Amritha”, 12th Main, Vijayanagar 1st Stage, Mysuru, Karnataka 570017, India. 3,4 Wildlife Research Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, Rajasthan 313001, India. 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected] The Lilac Silverline Apharits lilacinus (taxonomy org/observatons/38831801). Multple reviewers following Varshney & Smetacek 2015) is an exceedingly identfed the species as the Lilac Silverline, and we rare species of buterfy of the family Lycaenidae too confrmed the identfcaton with buterfy experts (also referred to as “the blues” or “gossamer-winged and with photographs available on the world wide buterfies”) that was frst described in 1884 from a web. The specimen we photographed was a dry season specimen with unknown origin (Moore 1884). Litle is form with a part of one wing missing possibly due to a known of its ecology, distributon, and conservaton status predaton atempt (Image 1a). This is the frst record of in India. In this note, we describe a recent observaton of this buterfy species from the Aravalli Hills and is also the species that consttutes a range extension. We also the frst record from Rajasthan State (Sharma 2014; provide a thorough review of literature relatng to this Jangid et al. 2016). Careful observatons for this species species with the intent to collate dispersed informaton throughout the year will help to confrm if it is resident to develop a beter understanding of the ecological in the area or a seasonal visitor. requirements of the Lilac Silverline. Historic literature points to the Lilac Silverline always On 18 February 2020, during a visit to the southern being rare in locatons it has been recorded in. Early part of Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary in southern collectons of buterfies include a few specimens of Rajasthan, we spoted a lycaenid buterfy sunning the Lilac Silverline 40km from Rawalpindi, Pakistan in itself perched on a rock in an area that was severely November 1885 (described incorrectly as a new species degraded by catle grazing, with few scatered trees called Azanus uranus; Butler 1886), and from Mhow of Butea monosperma, Lannea coromandelica, Acacia in Madhya Pradesh (described as a new species called species, and Mallotus philippensis amid sparse Lantana Aphnaeus aestvus; Swinhoe 1886). Very small numbers camara (Image 1a,b). The buterfy sightng was of the species have also been collected from Kasauli <50m from a dried stream bed. We uploaded images (Himachal Pradesh), Malda (West Bengal), Bengaluru of the buterfy to the online repository iNaturalist. (Karnataka) and north Lakhimpur (Utar Pradesh) of both org as an unidentfed Lycaenidae (www.inaturalist. the wet and dry forms (Riley 1925). Observatons have Editor: B.A. Daniel, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, Coimbatore, India. Date of publicaton: 26 June 2020 (online & print) Citaton: Sundar, K.S.G., S. Kitur, V.K. Koli & U. Prajapat (2020). Range extension of the Lilac Silverline Apharits lilacinus to southern Rajasthan and a review of the literature. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(9): 16180–16182. htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.5800.12.9.16180-16182 Copyright: © Sundar et al. 2020. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: No funding was received for this work. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Acknowledgements: We thank R. Bhanumat, A.K. Firos, and S. Karthikeyan for several discussions, useful background informaton, and unpublished personal observatons. This observaton was made while on feld work towards understanding Sloth Bear ecology in southern Rajasthan. We thank the Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan for permits to work in Kumbalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary and staf for their assistance during the feld work. 16180 J TT Range extension of Lilac Silverline Sundar et al. been made of the species’ habits at Chandigarh (Punjab), September, and the species is resident in Bengaluru. Hardwar (Utaranchal), and at Palmaner in Chitoor Available informaton is therefore inadequate to District (Andhra Pradesh; Wynter-Blyth 1957). These comment on the seasonality of the species in other early records point to the species being widespread but locatons. always sparse. A few observatons are available of the habitats More recent observatons of the Lilac Silverline have required by the Lilac Silverline. Wynter-Blyth (1957) been few but signifcant. The species was rediscovered notes that the species is scarce but widespread in open in Bengaluru afer a century by A.R. Nitn on 23 plains, scrubby hills, and in gram felds. Hesaraghata, December 2012 (de Nazareth 2013), and is now regularly where recent observatons of the species have been photographed throughout the year, at Hessarghata Lake made, is an urban wetland heavily disturbed by human with eggs and caterpillars indicatng that the locaton actvity (Sheshadri et al. 2013), and the recent sightng has a resident breeding populaton of the species in Chitoor is from an insttutonal campus (R. Bhanumat (Sheshadri et al. 2013; Sengupta et al. 2020). Another pers. comm. 2020). Our observaton of the Lilac Silverline photographic record was obtained for the frst tme in was from a heavily degraded part of the Kumbhalgarh northeastern India in May 2018 in Daying Ering Wildlife Wildlife Sanctuary (see Image 1). The observatons Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh (Kaman 2018). The Lilac collectvely suggest that the Lilac Silverline frequents a Silverline was also photographed on 25 September 2019 range of habitats, perhaps most commonly using areas from the Agastya Campus in Chitoor District, less than that experience human actvity, including low levels of 60km from Hesaraghata Lake in Bengaluru, consttutng urbanizaton, cropping, and catle grazing. The sightngs a rediscovery of the species in Andhra Pradesh (R. at Hesaraghata and our observaton at Kumbhalgarh Bhanumat pers. comm. 2020). The Agastya Campus has were made close to natural water sources suggestng been restored to a scrub-savanna mixture from fallow that this species is ofen found near surface water. felds, and only one sightng of the Lilac Silverline has It is fortunate that the Lilac Silverline is so widespread been made there despite multple years of observatons and appears to be compatble with several forms of for buterfies (R. Bhanumat pers. comm. 2020). human disturbance given the high protecton status of Both historic and current observatons match the the species (Schedule II of the Indian Wildlife Protecton distributon provided by Varshney & Smetacek (2015) Act 1972; Sengupta et al. 2020). In some locatons for the Lilac Silverline: “Gujarat to Karnataka; Himachal like Bengaluru, the rarity of this buterfy species has Pradesh to Assam”. Our record from Rajasthan adds to atracted photographers in large numbers whose the distributon range, and to existng conclusions that traversing of the habitat in vehicles indiscriminately the species is widespread in the Indian subcontnent appear to be destroying its host plant species in the (Wynter-Blyth 1957; Varshney & Smetacek 2015; only site where the species is confrmed to have a Sengupta et al. 2020). One-tme observatons have breeding populaton (Seshadri et al. 2013). Such been made across India in January, February, May, and uncontrolled actvites require to be curtailed to enable © K.S. Gopi Sundar © Swat Kitur a b Image 1. a—the dry season form of the Lilac Silverline photographed in Kumbalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan on 18 February 2020 | b— the locaton where it was photographed looking toward the dried stream that fowed in the valley. Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 June 2020 | 12(9): 16180–16182 16181 J TT Range extension of Lilac Silverline Sundar et al.

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