Towards a georeferenced checklist of the butterflies of Bhutan: a preliminary account (Insecta: Lepidoptera)

This paper presents the first attempt to build a georeferenced dataset of the butterflies of Bhutan. The huge range of habitats in Bhutan, from subtropical in the south to alpine in the north, presents a wide assemblage of habitat niches for butterflies. The digitized data was collected by four of the authors (Bozano, Wangdi, Sherub and Sbordoni) during recent trips from 2008 to 2013, as well as data obtained from a few recently published papers, where recording localities were presented with an acceptable degree of accuracy. At this time the dataset consists of more than 3000 records and includes observations and collection data for 533 butterfly species. Data came from 300 sampling sites throughout the whole of Bhutan, with a fairly good geographical coverage of the country, from tropical Dooars up to the alpine zone at 5000 m. Like other Himalayan countries, Bhutan lies in the Sino-Himalayan transition zone at the boundary between the Palaearctic and Oriental Region. From the checklist it was shown that the species can be sorted into four biogeographic classes. As expected, species attributed to Oriental fauna are by far the most abundant (63%) followed by Sino-Himalayan species (28%), only a few species were ascribed to Palaearctic (5%) and Widespread (4%) species.