Butterfly diversity at the agricultural college campus, Killikulam, Tami Nadu, India

An Investigation was carried out to study the diversity of the butterfly fauna at the Agricultural College Campus, Killikulam. A total of 721 individuals of butterflies belonging to 43 genera and 60 species within five families were recorded. Nymphalidae was the dominant family contributing 325 individuals followed by Pieridae (n=226), Lycaenidae (n=118), Papilionidae (n=31) and Hesperiidae with 21 individuals being the least. Lycaenidae was the dominant family with 14 genera (32.56%), followed by Nymphalidae with 11 genera (25.58%), whereas, in case of species composition, Nymphalidae was the most dominant family with 19 species, followed by Lycaenidae (16 species). Out of 60 butterfly species recorded, 20 are common, 8 are fairly common, 18 are un common and 14 are rare to the study area. Eurema brigitta Cramer (Family: Pieridae) was the most dominant species with 98 individuals followed by Eurema hecabe Linnaeus (n=67) (Family: Pieridae) and Danaus chrysippus Linnaeus (n=65) (Family: Nymphalidae). The abundance of butterflies fluctuated widely over the months and November 2014 was the most active month (n=200) and the butterflies were in less proportion during February 2015 (n=53). Species diversity was found highest in the family Nymphalidae (2.50), while as it was lowest in Hesperiidae (1.50). All the values obtained from the diversity indices showed that the whole area is rich in butterfly abundance.