Butterflies Diversity of Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha, India

Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary was east while in Kalahandi district and now in Nuapada district of Odisha. The topography of the sanctuary is mostly dominated by dry deciduous forest on hill slopes, valley, stream, river and waterfall, riparian vegetation along nala and grassland, meadows in plateaus and eleven beautiful water fall on seasonal streams of the Sanctuary. The survey yielded of 101 butterfly species, belonging to the families Nymphalidae, Pieridae, Lycaenidae, Papilionidae and Hesperiidae. Butterflies survey was undertaken along five different transect in the sanctuary for a period of five months. A total number of 101 species of having documented in five families .Maximum number of species were observed in the family Nymphalidae (39%, n=101), followed by Pieridae (11%), Lycaenidae (22%) and Papilionidae (14%) and Hesperidae (14%) respectively.