Butterfly blues
Several rare butterfly species are facing extinction with the uncannily swift habitat destruction of the Western Ghats. Of the 350 butterfly species available in the Ghats, up to 70 are at the brink of the precipice, warns Harish Gaonkar, an Indian-born scientist at Copenhagen's Zoological Museum, who is urgently mapping butterfly habitats in India.
Many butterflies in the Ghats are dependent on medicinal plants as their hosts; the steady depletion of these plants -- many of which are found only in this region -- spells certain doom for the butterflies. "A butterfly is an indicator of environment change," says Gaonkar.
The Travancore Evening Brown species is rapidly declining as the adjoining bamboo forests hosting it are increasingly exploited for making paper. The Malabar Tree Nymph, once abundant in the area, is now confined only to humid river valleys as the vegetation that it needs is taking a knocking.
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