Kolkata: Kolkata-headquartered Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) has completed the first comprehensive Catalogue of Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths) of India, recording 13,703 species, bringing together updated taxonomic information on the country’s butterfly and moth diversity after more than a century of scattered documentation.The catalogue, completed over 12 years, has been prepared by ZSI taxonomists Navneet Singh and Rahul Joshi through field surveys, museum studies and verification of published scientific literature. The final volume of the series has been published in international journal Zootaxa.The catalogue comprises 22 volumes and documents 13,703 species of butterflies and moths belonging to 3,705 genera, 240 subfamilies, 102 families and 31 superfamilies. According to the authors, the documented species account for about 8.25% of known Lepidoptera species worldwide.The final volume catalogues the remaining 1,689 species and resolves the classification of several previously unresolved families, completing the national inventory. ZSI is India’s top group for animal research and study, under environment, forest and climate change ministry.A major component of the project is the catalogue of moth superfamily Geometroidea. India has 2,205 recorded species of Geometroidea belonging to 479 genera, 13 subfamilies and four families, representing about 8.80% of the world’s known species in the group.Among these, family Geometridae is the largest, with 2,100 species in 445 genera. The remaining families include Uraniidae with 95 species in 27 genera, Epicopeiidae with nine species in six genera and Pseudobistonidae with one species in one genus. Family Sematuridae does not occur in India.Within Geometridae, the largest subfamilies are Ennominae with 895 species, Larentiinae with 565 species and Geometrinae with 309 species. Epidesmiinae and Heraculinae are each represented by a single species in India.Butterflies and moths play important ecological roles as pollinators, herbivores and detritivores and form part of the food chain for birds, bats and other insect-eating animals. Several species are also important in agriculture and forestry because of their interactions with crops and forest vegetation.The catalogue provides a standardized reference for researchers, conservation agencies and policymakers by consolidating taxonomic information that was previously scattered across scientific publications and museum collections. The baseline dataset is expected to support biodiversity assessments, ecological monitoring and studies on the impact of climate change.ZSI director Dhriti Banerjee said the catalogue would serve as a national reference for biodiversity research, ecological monitoring and conservation planning by providing an updated and verified record of India’s butterfly and moth diversity.
