Rapid Fire
Dusted Apollo Butterfly
- 05 Feb 2024
- 1 min read
Recently, the Dusted Apollo (Parnassius stenosemus), a rare high-altitude butterfly, was sighted and photographed for the first time in Himachal Pradesh's Chamba.
- The Dusted Apollo butterfly was discovered in 1890 and its distribution range extends from Ladakh to West Nepal, flying between 3,500 to 4,800 meters in the inner Himalayas.
- It is a member of the snow Apollo genus (Parnassius) of the swallowtail family.
- The Dusted Apollo species closely resembles Ladakh Banded Apollo (Parnnasius stoliczkanus) but the discal band (band on a butterfly's wing) on the upper fore wing in dusted Apollo is complete and extends from costa to vein one while this discal band is incomplete and extends only up to vein four in Ladakh Banded Apollo.
- The sighting also included another rare species, Regal Apollo (Parnnasius charltonius), which is protected under Schedule II of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
