First live photo in India of rare species butterfly captured

 OUR CORRESPONDENT

BONGAIGAON: Atanu Bose, who has been an avid butterfly photographer since 2009, recorded as the first photographer to live record a very rare species of Swallowtail butterfly, Noble's Helen (Papilionoblei) for India.

He took the photo first on September 13, 2019 at 19th Miles of Namdapha National Park, Arunachal Pradesh. "Continuing the journey, I took the second live photograph on March 7, 2020 at Lukai Nala area and third was on September 27, 2023 at Deban Camp area, both areas are at Namdapha National Park, Arunachal Pradesh. During the third live photography, Loren Sonowal and Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi accompanied me. Scientific paper on this report have been published on January 23, 2023 in the Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies," Bose said.

"This rare species of butterfly, known as - Noble's Helen (Papilionoblei), are mostly found in Myanmar, Yunnan, Hubai (China), North Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. But this rare Swallowtail butterfly is disappearing in recent times from its previously known range in SE Asia. This is the first photograph in India to record live species of Noble's Helen. Before this, it was recorded in Putao area of Kachin District of Myanmar, which is aerially 80 km apart from Namdapha National Park. All these evidences prove that this rare species of butterfly is moving towards the Northeast gradually, which is a very important matter of Entomology. Adarsha Mukherjee had recorded live in September, 2021 and a dead specimen was recorded by Raju Kasambe in October, 2022 (recently published in Bionotes)," Bose said.

Atanu Bose, originally from Bongaigaon, created another milestone in butterfly photography of India on November 22, 2022 by capturing the first live record of Gynandromorph of Colour Sergeant (Athymanefteinara) butterfly from Buxa Tiger Reserve, West Bengal on 22.11.2021 along with Rajib Dey, Anitava Roy, Shantanu Dey, Sourabh Biswas and Kurban Khan of West Bengal. Many of his captured photographs are published in national and international books.

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