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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Short Communication First record in 129 years of the Tamil Treebrown Lethe drypetis todara Moore, 1881 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) from Odisha, India by fruit-baiting Anirban Mahata, Sudheer Kumar Jena & Sharat Kumar Palita 26 December 2019 | Vol. 11 | No. 15 | Pages: 15047–15052 DOI: 10.11609/jot.4485.11.15.15047-15052 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. 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Partner Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2019 | 11(15): 15047–15052 First record in 129 years of the Tamil Treebrown Lethe drypetis todara Moore, 1881 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) from Odisha, India by fruit-baiting ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) Short Communication Short Anirban Mahata 1 , Sudheer Kumar Jena 2 & Sharat Kumar Palita 3 ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) PLATINUM 1,2,3 Department of Biodiversity and Conservaton of Natural Resources, Central University of Odisha, Koraput, OPEN ACCESS Odisha 764021, India. 1 [email protected], 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected] (corresponding author) Abstract: The frst record of a buterfy species, the Tamil Treebrown of the taxon is Sri Lanka, southern India to Pachmarhi, Lethe drypets todara Moore, 1881 (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) is Kashmir to Assam and Myanmar (Mathew & Soumya described from Deomali Hill range of southern Odisha, in Eastern Ghats of India, collected by fruit-baitng. This is the frst record from Odisha 2013). Older literature report it from Sri Lanka to almost 129 years afer its frst report from Khurda in coastal Odisha by peninsular India (Bingham 1905; Antram 1924), Taylor & de Niceville in the year 1888. The ecology and sampling of the species are described in this study. common, widespread and endemic to these regions (Gaonkar 1996). It is locally very common in the low Keywords: Bait trap, buterfy, Eastern Ghats, ecology, Koraput. jungles of the Western Ghats and the Nilgiris (Wynter- Blyth 1957). Talbot (1947) reported this species as “not-rare” from peninsular India to Odisha region. The subfamily Satyrinae, with about 2,500 described Gaonkar (1996) reported it from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, species, is one of the most diverse groups of buterfies Karnataka, Goa, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. In recent (Peña & Wahlberg 2008), comprising over a third of tmes, it has been reported from Kotagiri in the Nilgiris, the Nymphalidae diversity and found on all contnents the moist-deciduous forests in Biligiriranga Hills and except Antarctca (Ackery et al. 1999; DeVries 2000). Wyanad, the Nadgani Ghat and Silent Valley (Mathew The group is partcularly diverse in the Neotropics, with & Soumya 2013). The species has also been reported approximately 1,200 species in 137 genera (Lamas et from Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu al. 2004), occurring in all habitats with vegetaton (Devy & Davidar 2001). There are quite a few reports from sea level to the highlands of the Andes (DeVries of its occurrence from various parts of southern India 1987). Satyrinae buterfies in India are represented by partcularly from the states of Karnataka (Districts of 190 species under fve tribes and 18 genera (Varshney Chikkamagaluru, Kodagu, Shivamogga, Utara Kannada, & Smetacek 2015) and 30 species in peninsular India Hassan, Mysore, and Dakshina Kannada), Kerala (Kunte 2000). (Districts of Idukki, Palakkad, Malappuram, Wayanad, The Tamil Treebrown Lethe drypets todara Moore, and Kozhikode), Maharashtra (Sindhudurg District) and 1881, is a buterfy belonging to the subfamily Satyrinae Tamil Nadu (Districts of Theni, Nilgiri, and Dindigul) and the family Nymphalidae. The global distributon (Ogale 2019). DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4485.11.15.15047-15052 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0ED556D3-96E2-469D-BFA1-679C2A11C80D Editor: Sanjay Sondhi, Titli Trust, Dehradun, India. Date of publicaton: 26 December 2019 (online & print) Manuscript details: #4485 | Received 11 August 2018 | Final received 10 October 2019 | Finally accepted 23 November 2018 Citaton: Mahata, A., S.K. Jena & S.K. Palita (2019). First record in 129 years of the Tamil Treebrown Lethe drypets todara Moore, 1881 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) from Odisha, India by fruit-baitng. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(15): 15047–15052. htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4485.11.15.15047-15052 Copyright: © Mahata et al. 2019. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton Funding: University Grants Commission, New Delhi. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the University Grants Commission, New Delhi for providing Non NET Fellowship (CUO/ACA/NNF-PHD/135) to the frst author. We are also thankful to the DFO, Koraput Forest Division, Odisha for support. 15047 Record of Tamil Treebrown afer 129 years Mahata et al. From central India, the species was reported from southern Odisha, in Eastern Ghats of India, trapped by the Kanger Valley Natonal Park and from Bilaspur, fruit-baitng. Chhatsgarh (Chandra 2006; Chandra et al. 2007) as well as from Pench Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh (Tiwari Materials and Methods et al. 2010). The frst record of the Tamil Treebrown For the past two and half years (September 2015 to in Eastern Ghats is from Maredumilli and Jalatarangini March 2018), we have been studying the diversity and waterfalls of Papikonda Natonal Park in northern distributon of buterfies in diferent parts of Koraput Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh (Goswami et al. 2018). District. During our surveys, we used the fruit-baitng The species was recorded from wet riparian vegetaton technique in Deomali Hills (18.644–18.681 0N and near waterfalls. 82.968–83.016 0E) to capture nymphalid buterfies The Eastern Ghats hill range of southern Odisha is one (Figure 1). Deomali is the highest peak of Odisha of the biodiversity rich areas in Odisha (Dash et al. 2015). (1,672m). The fauna and fora show marked similarity Although several studies on buterfy diversity has been with high alttude species of the Himalayan and Western carried out in diferent parts of the Eastern Ghats (Nandi Ghats regions. The vegetaton of the hill is tropical 1987; Nair 2007; Paria et al. 2018), southern Odisha moist deciduous type. The valleys and slopes are remains poorly explored except for some recent faunal covered with riparian semi-evergreen forests (Image inventories (Mohapatra et al. 2014; Debata et al. 2015; 1), where species like Diospyros malabarica, Mangifera Purohit et al. 2017; De & Palita 2018; Debata & Palita indica, Ficus spp., Rubus elliptcus, Pitosporum wighti, 2018; Mahata et al. 2018). There is, however, no record Chionanthus ramiforus, Neolitsea cassia, Zanthoxylum of this species from Odisha except that of a report on armatum and Zanthoxylum rhetsa are dominant. The its occurrence from Khurda (Figure 1) by Taylor & de plateau is covered with grassland and meadows with Nicéville (1888), 129 years ago. In the present study, several species of grasses of Poaceae and Cyperaceae the frst record of Tamil Treebrown from Odisha since its families such as Cyperus leucocephalus, Fimbristylis last sightng is described from the Deomali Hill range of pieroti, Arundinella holocoides, Themeda mooneyi and Figure 1. Map showing the distributon of Lethe drypets todara in India and its frst record in Odisha from Deomali Hills, Southern Odisha, Eastern Ghats, India. 15048 Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2019 | 11(15): 15047–15052 Record of Tamil Treebrown afer 129 years Mahata et al. Figure 2. Placement of buterfy traps on both side of the transect line in three alttudinal bands (800–1,000 m, 1,000–1,200 m and 1,200–1,400 m) at Deomali Hill range, southern Odisha. © Anirban Mahata Image 1. Habitat of the study sites at Deomali Hill range, southern Odisha, Eastern Ghats, India. Themeda triandra. Wide varietes of bryophytes (around 43 species) and pteridophytes (45 species) have been recorded from this region (Dash et al. 2015). Bamboo brakes are found in riparian regions of Deomali. Rainfall is heavy and well