Context

• Lepidopterists in Arunachal Pradesh have helped add two species to India’s expanding list of butterflies.

About the species

• One of them, the Striped Hairstreak, was first recorded by Japanese entomologists in Hainan province of China.
• The other, Elusive Prince, has a Vietnamese connection and was thought to be the more familiar Black Prince found in the Eastern Himalayas.
• The Striped Hairstreak (Yamamotozephyrus kwangtugenesis) was located in Vijaynagar bordering Myanmar while the Elusive Prince was found in Miao on the periphery of the Namdapha National Park.
• The Rohana genus had been represented in India by two species — the Black Prince (Rohana parisatis) and the Brown Prince (Rohana parvata).
• The scientific name of the Elusive Prince is Rohana tonkiniana, named after Tonkin in north Vietnam, where it was first recorded. It was believed to exist in Bhutan, but studies of the specimen found there have not been conclusive.
• The discovery of the Striped Hairstreak, whose genus was broken into several genera by Japanese researchers, was more intriguing for the lepidopterists.
• The recording of the two butterflies follows the “rediscovery” of the Assam Keelback, a non-venomous snake from the Gelling area of Arunachal Pradesh after 129 years.