India is home to 13,703 species of lepidoptera, about 8.25% of all known species of butterflies and moths

The detailed Catalogue of Lepidoptera (Butterflies & Moths) of India by scientists of the Zoological Survey of India has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.

| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

India is home to 13,703 species of lepidoptera — butterflies and moths — which is about 8.25% of the total lepidoptera found across the globe.Scientists of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have come out with a detailed Catalogue of Lepidoptera (Butterflies & Moths) of India which has been published in peer reviewed journal Zootaxa.ZSI scientists Navneet Singh and Rahul Joshi took almost 12 years to complete the monumental work of cataloguing, field exploration, museum curation, and rigorous literature verification.“There have been attempts to classify and catalogue lepidoptera for over 100 years. There are 13,703 species of butterflies and moths across 3,705 genera, 240 subfamilies, 102 families, and 31 superfamilies,” Mr. Singh said.

Bridging critical taxonomic gaps that have persisted for more than 100 years, the catalogue ‘firmly positions India among a select group of megadiverse nations possessing a fully updated, centralized, and authoritative baseline inventory of its butterfly and moth diversity’.