Dear Animish,Woww ! Lucky you. Congrats! Isaac See my Butterfly Images:http://www.flickr.com/photos/26689...@n00/
--- On Sun, 15/8/10, Alka Vaidya <[email protected]> wrote: From: Alka Vaidya <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] Nice find From Eaglenest WLS, Arunachal of Arhopala curiosa To: [email protected] Date: Sunday, 15 August, 2010, 9:58 AM congrats, Alka Vaidya --- On Sat, 14/8/10, Animish Mandrekar <[email protected]> wrote: From: Animish Mandrekar <[email protected]> Subject: [ButterflyIndia] Nice find From Eaglenest WLS, Arunachal of Arhopala curiosa To: [email protected], [email protected] Date: Saturday, 14 August, 2010, 1:34 PM 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] -- Enjoy
