Title- Diversity of butterflies of Azmat Abad village and Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya For the award the degree of Masters of Philosophy in Zoology By Sajid Ali Enrollment No. AU191846 DEPARTMENT OF LIFE SCIENCE RABINDRANATH TAGORE UNIVERSITY BHOPAL. (M.P) Supervised by Dr Pragya Shrivestav HOD of life science RNTU, Bhopal Session 2019-2020 Title- Diversity of butterflies of Azmat Abad village and Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya CERTIFICATE I hereby, certify that the work which is being presented in this dissertation ‘ Diversity Studies of Butterfly in Village Azmat Abad Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya’.by Sajid Ali for the partial fulfilment of requirements of the award of degree of M. Phil (ZOOLOGY) submitted to the department of zoology at Rabindranath Tagore University is an authentic record of my own work carried out during the period of 2019-20 under the supervision of Dr Pragya Shrivastava Signature of student Sajid Ali This certify that the above Statement made by the candidate is correct to the best of my knowledge Supervised by Dr.Pragya Shrivastava Department of life science RNTU,Bhopal Title- Diversity of butterflies of Azmat Abad village and Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya ACKNOLOWLEDGMENT - Read! For thy lord is most beautiful, Who has taught [ Man] the use of pen, [ AND] Taught man What he knew not! The Holy Quran All praise be to Allah- The Almighty, only with whose divine mercy and blessing it became possible for me to climb the ladder of education to this level. At this juncture of time, where I am given an opportunity to convey my gratefulness to all those have helped me to sail through the sea of education. I would first like to convey a deep sense of gratitude, to my parents (Mohd Rashid and Razia Begum), whose tale of lengthy struggle, sacrifice, trust, and dedication has made it a reality for me to see the doorstep of a higher learning institution. I also thank all other family members especially My uncle for their immaculate love, affection, inspiration, and constant encouragement that provided me an incentive for the completion of this work. I owe immense admiration and indebtedness to my Research Supervisor, Dr.Pragy shrivastava, Post Graduate Department of Zoology, University of RNTU M.P Bhopal, for providing unwavering guidance, persistent encouragement and priceless suggestion to complete the present work. I am fortunate to be under his unlimited source of knowledge, skill and perfection she desires in his work and sees in his students. Words cannot express my gratitude for her. I feel highly elated to express my sense of gratitude to Prof.Saleem Ayaz Rather , Head , Department of Zoology Govt Degree college Thanna mandi , for providing incalculable help and unswerving encouragement during the course of present work. Thanks also Shahnawaz sir for their words of encouragement and valuable suggestion from time to time. Title- Diversity of butterflies of Azmat Abad village and Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya My sincere Thanks to My Brother Shoket Ali for his blessing support and encouragement throughout the education of my life. Special Thanks to Mis.Shazia Koser for helping me in collection , financial support and encouragement throughout the course of study, I shall be doing injustice if I forget to mention the name of My sisters, Dill john, Mukhtar koser, Shazia koser, for his blessing, support, and encouragement it became possible for me to climb the ladder of education to this level. This work would remain incomplete if I do not mention my gratefulness towards my friends namely, Arshid Mughal,Tariq Mehmood ,zaffer Iqbal ,Hafeez Tariq Mehmood,Abrar Bhati, Rashid khan, Ajaz khan , Waseem khan, Basat Maqbool, Nadeem khan,for helping me for collection , and giving precious time and encouragement, Among all I must thank Zaffer sir, Mavish khan ,S.M.Rizvi for all the support , encouragement, and cooperation through this work. Last but not least, thanks are to all my friends and people who were directly or indirectly associated w Title- Diversity of butterflies of Azmat Abad village and Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya JOURNAL OF WILDWIFE RESESRCH New record of butterflies (Lepidoptera : Insecta) from Azmat Abad village and Thanna mandi Districts Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya Sajid Ali Department of Life Science .Rabindranath Tagore university M.P. Bhopal 464993 Abstract Main aim and objective of paper was to documanted the new record of Butterflies in the Azmat Abad village and Thanna mandi District Rajouri Jammu and Kashmir, based on the field survey. The butterflies recorded the first time in the Azmat Abad village and Thanna mandi, The Altitude is 1668 meters above the sea level supports sub-tropical to temperate vegetation and offers congenial climatic condition favourable for growth of vegetation including fauna. Altitude distribution of butterflies From higher to lower altitudes.With and altitudes range number of species present in lower altitudes and keeps decreasing toward higher Altitude. The present study added valuable information on diversity of Butterfly fauna and will contribute in developing effective conservation in Azmat Abad village and Thana Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya. Keywords ----- Butterfly, Azmat Abad village ,key Nymphalidae ,Papilipnidae, Pieridae. Title- Diversity of butterflies of Azmat Abad village and Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya 1.GENERAL-INTRODUCTION Butterflies are belonging toa long group of insects, belonging to the order ‘Lepidoptera.’ Linnaeus 1758 are holometabolous group of living organism as they complete metamorphosis cycle in four stage viz. egg or embryo, larva or caterpillar, pupa or chrysalis, imago or adult ( Gullan and Cranston,2004,Capinera 2008).The seasonal variation groups were useful in the natural ecosystem as pollinator and as a food in the ecological food chain. Taxonomists often degree about whether any particular taxon of butterfly were a full species or just a sub-species or form. Therefore, published estimate of the total number of species of describe taxa in the world range from 17000, -20,000 (Shields 1989, Robins 1982.) Hoskin (2017) has a recently reported total 17,6980f butterflies distributed in five zoogeographical regions. Viz Holarctic, Neotropical, Afrotropical, Oriental, Australian regions, and not reported from Antarctica region. Total no, of species so for reported in India are 1439, (Evans1932; Kunte,2018) from oasis, high mountains, highlands, tropical to sub- tropical forest, grassland, and area surrounded by rivers. Jammu and Kashmir Knows as ‘Terrestrial Paradise on earth’ categorized to as a part of Shivalik range of Indian Himalayan State with a total forest cover of 8,128 km (Singh and Beedi, 2017) and Worldwide Known for rich biological diversity. These region encompasses a variety of habitats conducive to species of butterflies fauna of J and k UTs and elsewhere in the country ( Home, 1938;Moore, 1874;Lang,1947;Wynter-Blyth 1957;Mani and Singh ,1962;Das et al.,1964; Das and Verma,1965; Tshikolovets,2005; Uniyal,2007; Khan et al., 2011; Sidhu et al., 2012;Quershi, 2014; Sondhi et al., 2017; Sharma and Sharma. 2017). Considering the importance of butterflies as pollinators in natural ecosystem and role in development of new species , the present study was undertaken to explore and document the butterfly fauna of Azmat Abad village and Thanna mandi located in Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya. 1.2 Study areas: The study on butterfly was conducted between March 2020 to May 2020.A total 55 days’ observation was done during the study period. Field observation were done to bright sunny periods of the day when butterfly is most active. The study area includes : Thanna Mandi, Azmat Abad, lower D.K.G,Ratan peer,and Baba Ghulam shah shrine. Title- Diversity of butterflies of Azmat Abad village and Thanna Mandi District Rajouri of Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya 1.3 Species identification During survey for butterflies, the species were recorded in note book. The species identification was done by consulting the pictorial field guide, Catalogues and Key (Evan, 1972; Varshney, 1983; Kunte,2006; Panji et al,2006; Singh, 2010; Varsheney and Smetacek 2015, Kehimkar 2016. 1.4 Morphological Features 0f the butterflies. The butterfly body is made of three parts: head, thorax and abdomen. The head has a pair of antennae or feelers which are usually long and knobbed at the ends. The antennae are sensitive to touch and smell, and have a specific number of segments, sometimes of use in identification. There is a pair of compound eyes, one on each side of the head. The eyes are beveled so that a wide angle of vision is possible. The sight of butterflies like many other insects is good for detecting movements, but not details. Each compound eye is made up of thousands of tiny eye modules called ommatidia, each of which has a small lens connected to the optic nerve. The other main feature on the head is tongue, or proboscis, used for sucking up liquids. Its structure resembles two straws fused together and zipped up, (Feltwell, 2001). The first three segments from the head form the thorax, which bears legs and wings. There are three pairs of legs viz., Prothoracic, Mesothoracic and Metathoracic and each leg is divided into 5 segments - coxa, trochanter or hip, femur or thigh, tibia, and tarsus or foot. Coxa is the segment which is attached to the body. Trochanter is very small, between coxa and femur. Femur is the strongest part of the leg and shorter than tibia. Tibia is slender and may be long and freely movable. Sometimes tibia are armed with spurs or spines or with hair. Tarsus consists of five segments of variable length, the fifth ending in a claw, sometimes bifid, may be blunt or padded.