New species found in Sikkim’s Dzongu, the ‘land of butterflies’
The Hindu
The closest relatives of the Chocolate-bordered Flitter are in southeastern China
When Sonam Wangchuk Lepcha, from Dzongu in north Sikkim, started watching butterflies and taking pictures of them, he was not taken very seriously by the people around him. But now his hobby has led to the discovery of a new butterfly species, whose closest relatives are in southeastern China, close to Hong Kong.
Since 2016, Mr. Wangchuk Lepcha has been in the habit of photographing butterflies and sending their pictures to entomologists based at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, to identify and upload them on to the ‘Butterflies of India’ website they maintain. In 2020, he contributed the picture of a golden yellow butterfly with brown borders and spots.