The butterflies of Queen Mary’s

A follow-up on our feature on insects on September 16th

Seen from left to right: Common Gull, Blue Pansy, Common Castor, Yellow Pansy, Tawny Castor, Plain Tiger, Common Crow, Plain Tiger, Lemon Pansy and Crimson Rose.

Queen Mary’s College, Mylapore, has diverse flora and fauna. The college campus witnessed different species of butterflies immediately after the recent rains.

Butterflies are good pollinators and bio-indicators. Any small change in the environment affects butterflies to a great extent. They help us in assessing the health of the environment. When we walk through the campus from the main gate you find many different species of butterflies fluttering their wings. The college campus has a good number of herbs, shrubs, climbers and trees.

Open grass lands and small weeds attract butterflies. Plants like Nerium serve as host plants for common crow butterflies, lime trees for lime butterflies. Tridax commonly known as vettuk-kaaya-thalai is the host plant for plain tiger Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Peacock Flower attracts common grass yellow, Turnera subulata commonly known as white butter cup is the host plant for migrant butterflies.

The Asoka tree attracts the tailed Jay. Plants like Ixora, calatrophis, hibiscus, lantana (unnimul) attract butterflies as well. Butterflies are beautiful, flying insects with large scaly wings. Reflection of light on the scales of the wings gives the colouration of the butterflies. They can’t fly at lower temperatures.

Many of us get confused between a butterfly and a moth: we can easily differentiate a butterfly from a moth by looking at the antennae. In moths, antennae are feathery while for the butterfly, the antennae are clubbed. The butterfly appears only in day time while the moth appears at night.

Recently, our department at QMC conducted a Butterfly Walk for the students and we sighted 24 different species of butterflies. This was an event of the Department of Zoology.

Dr. Bavani Govindarajulu
Asst. Prof., Dept. of Zoology, QMC
bavaniqmc@gmail.com

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