peter, given our experience with "very rare"
butterflies such as the Scarce Jester
(Symbrenthia silana) and others, i am sure that
more specimens of A. curiosa will soon be
discovered and some will be collected for
research museums. now we know what this species
looks like and where to look for it.
"Curious Oakblue" was my first choice for its
english name, too. i will think more about it.
At 6:18 PM +0000 8/14/10, Peter Smetacek wrote:
Dear Krushnamegh and Animish,
congratulations. Again, wish you had the
specimen, so it would be possible to work out
its proper generic affiliations. However, this
is not about my constant wail for specimens, but
to point out to Krushnamegh that "Curio Oakblue"
might not be gramatically correct. Do consider
"Curious Oakblue".
On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:46:08 +0530 wrote
Hi Group,
Indeed this is good news for all of us.
My trip 2008 Trip to Arunachal Pradesh was very
eventful. We (Myself and Shasank Dalvi)
were stuck at Nameri Eco Camp for more than a
week due to heavy cloudburst in Arunachal. The
road from Bhalunkpong to Tenga was jammed due to
heavy landslides which was finally removed by
military. On our way to Eaglenest we could count
more than 50 Landslides in a stretch of 86 Kms.
The Insect and Bird activity was very low as
compare to my earlier trip to this place in
2007. We reasoned it to be the torrential rains
which had swept the entire forest floor. Heavy
rains are not new to this place but this was
real bad. In our trip we noticed forest activity
was good in low altitude as compared to the
mountains.
On our way back, one sunny afternoon of 12th Nov
2008, I saw a brown coloured butterfly mud
puddling at Lama Camp with unusual twisting at
it rear wings. I could manage to take few shot
before it disappeared.
Thank to KK for taking time out of his busy
schedule and identifying it. Below are his
comment:
the name of your species is
Arhopala curiosa, for which i have coined the english name, Curio
Oakblue. i just made its entry in my Catalog of Indian
Butterflies:
"E. Himalaya. Previously known only from a single female
(type specimen), which was collected from Dokyong La, Bhutan, at
3,000m asl on 1927/03/25 by F. M. Bailey (Evans 1957). Recently, a
specimen was photographed mud-puddling at the Lama Camp (27º08.48'N
92º27.23'E; 2,350m asl) in Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in W.
ArunachalPradesh, adjacent to Bhutan, in the second week of Nov.
2008, by Animish Mandrekar. This seems to be the only other record
known of the species. This species has an unusual wing shape for an
Arhopala and d'Abrera (1986) has remarked that it looks rather
similar to members of Mahathala."
Happy Butterflying,
--
Animish Mandrekar
Address: 304, Dattatray Bhavan,
Eksar Road, Borivli (West),
Mumbai-400 103
Tel.: (022) 28914101
Email: [email protected]
<http://sigads.rediff.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/www.rediffmail.com/signatureline....@middle?>
--
Krushnamegh Kunte, PhD
Post-doctoral Research Fellow (Kronforst Lab)
FAS Center for Systems Biology
Harvard University
52 Oxford St
Northwest Lab Room 458.40-3
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Ph: (617) 496-0078
Cell: (512) 577-1370
Fax: (617) 495-2196
Email: [email protected]
Other emails: [email protected], [email protected]
Personal website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/index.htm
Indian Foundation for Butterflies: http://ifoundbutterflies.org/
Google profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/krushnamegh
--
Enjoy
