Bhutanitis ludlowi
| Ludlow's Bhutan swallowtail | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Papilionidae |
| Genus: | Bhutanitis |
| Species: | B. ludlowi |
| Binomial name | |
|
Bhutanitis ludlowi Gabriel, 1942 |
|
Bhutanitis ludlowi, the Ludlow's Bhutan swallowtail, is a species of butterfly in the family Papilionidae, endemic to Bhutan and recently recorded in India. It belongs to the subfamily Parnassiinae subfamily which also contains the Apollo butterflies.
Until recently, Bhutanitis ludlowi was poorly known, and despite recent studies, its biology and distribution are still not entirely known. The taxon was originally known from a series of five specimens collected in Bhutan during 1933-1934 by the botanists Frank Ludlow and George Sheriff. Four of these specimens were referred to in the type description, which contained little information on the species' biology other than they were collected at an altitudinal range of 2000–2200 metres in forest.
In 1992, Chou claimed that a specimen of B. ludlowi had been collected in Yunnan and had been lodged in a Chinese collection. Although this record was questioned by subsequent authors, a later publication by Chou (2000) did not provide additional information. Although Chou (2000) illustrated a specimen, it was later determined to be a retouched photo of the type specimen in the British Museum (Natural History). As no specimen has demonstrably been collected in China, Bollino and Racheli (2012) argued that the record was a misidentification of Bhutanitis lidderdalii spinosa.
In August 2009, Karma Wangdi, a Bhutanese forestry officer, collected a specimen of B. ludlowi in the Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary, located in Bhutan's remote Trashiyangtse Valley. This specimen provided the first unambiguous evidence in some 75 years that the species was extant. In August 2011, some mating pairs of B. ludlowi were sighted and captured at Bumdelling Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan by a research team from Bhutan in collaboration with the Butterfly Society of Japan (BSJ) and NHK Japan (Bhutan government official release 2011; Kuenzang 2011). Amazingly, the expedition sighted their first B. ludlowi on August 12, the same date that Ludlow and Sheriff took the first specimen in 1933. Bhutanitis ludlowi subsequently became the national butterfly of Bhutan.
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