A preliminary checklist of larval host plants of butterflies of Bankura and Purulia districts of West Bengal, India

In this paper, we present a preliminary checklist of butterfly larval host plants from the Bankura and Purulia districts, which are a part of the Chotanagpur Plateau of West Bengal, India. The authors found ۲۲۳ plant species from ۵۲ plant families, which were used as larval hosts by ۱۲۴ butterfly species. In terms of the use of plant families and species, we discovered a strong positive association between Nymphalidae and Hesperiidae and between Lycaenidae and Pieridae. According to our two-way ANOVA findings, there are notable variations in plant usage among butterfly families, which were elaborately discussed using hierarchical classical clustering. Most of the plant species utilized were from the Fabaceae and Poaceae families.

Keywords:

Chotanagpur Plateau , Deccan , food plants , Lepidoptera , plant diversity