OUR CORRESPONDENT
KOKRAJHAR: As the Ultapani-Saralpara of Sikhna Jwhwlao National Park in Kokrajhar district is known as the land of 'Dancing Butterflies,' the Chief of BTC, Hagrama Mohilary, on Saturday released a special booklet on the butterflies of the Bodoland forest landscape, published by the Forest Department, BTC, in the presence of Deputy Chief Rihon Daimary, EM Rabiram Narzary, Additional Principal Secretary of BTC Pranjit Wary, and Chief Conservator of Forest-cum CHD, Forest, BTC Dr Sonali Ghosh.
The publication presents a checklist, along with photographs of some common butterfly species recorded in the region, highlighting the extraordinary butterfly diversity of Bodoland and reinforcing the council's commitment to biodiversity conservation and nature-based tourism.
The Chief Conservator of Forest-cum-CHD, Forest, BTC, Dr Sonali Ghosh, said that, spread across 3,653 square kilometres, the Bodoland Forest landscape comprised a mosaic of tropical evergreen, semi-evergreen, moist mixed-deciduous forests and alluvial grasslands situated at the confluence of the Indo-Malayan and Indo-Gangetic biogeographic zones. She said that the landscape supports more than 346 recorded butterfly species, including several rare, endemic, and threatened taxa, making it one of the richest butterfly habitats in Northeast India.
She also said that Assam, largely dominated by plains, is home to around 620 butterfly species, of which more than 346 species have been recorded from the Bodoland Forest landscape alone.
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