Monsoon’s arrival brings waves of blue tiger butterflies to Bengaluru

Bengaluru’s parks, gardens, and balconies are swarming with strikingly large and beautiful groups of butterflies. Among them, blue tiger is standing out, captivating people across the city. So, what is bringing them to Bengaluru now? Here’s everything you need to know about it.
‘It is an annual migration across southern India’
With the arrival of the monsoon season, butterflies annually begin their journey from the Western to the Eastern Ghats. Professor Anuradha Batabyal of FLAME University explains the phenomenon of spotting large group of butterflies, saying, “Butterflies get these cues generally from nature, like when the rains are coming, and they follow different kinds of patterns. Now, the timing of monsoons is also very different each year, so that can affect when they start migrating. That is the reason why Bengaluru is swarming with these migratory butterflies.”

‘More than just a visual treat’
“Butterfly migration is a visual spectacle, but beyond that, it highlights how living beings respond to changes in weather conditions. Changes in migration patterns could reveal secrets of climate change. The visual grandeur could help attract the attention of the general public to butterfly activity, which is a dipstick to know how good the environment is,” says Nagesh Ramamurthy, of the Bangalore Butterfly Club.

'Bengaluru is an ideal resting spot for butterflies’
“Bengaluru sits on a plateau and has a temperate climate, both factors that are favourable for butterflies. The elevation and temperatures make it an ideal resting spot during their long migratory journey,” says Dr Shonali Chinniah, Marine biologist, Educator, and Science program designer at Curiouscity, Bengaluru. But what keeps them coming back is something simpler – the plants. “When the host plants, the ones butterflies lay their eggs on, and nectar plants, the ones they feed from, are present in abundance, the number of butterflies naturally increases. If these plants are growing in a concentrated area, it can seem like there’s a massive ‘butterfly wave’ passing through,” explained Anil Chinniah, entrepreneur and urban environmentalist.



‘Butterflies can survive even in environments that are very low-maintenance’
Despite the rapid urbanisation, butterflies are still spotted in the cities. “Butterflies can survive in very low-maintenance environments. Like, they don’t need a huge patch of forest land to inhabit an area. They can survive if their host plants are present, or if the plants they are foraging in are there. So that’s the reason we still see a variety of butterfly species in cities like Bengaluru,” explains professor Anuradha.

'The migration in the middle of the year is due to several climatic threats’
“Decline in food and host plants due to land-use conversion and application of weedicides, replacement of native plants by invasive plant species, and high mortality due to vehicular hits and climatic changes are some of the major threats that butterflies are facing that are affecting their migratory behaviour in the middle of the year,” says Professor Atul Joshi of FLAME University.





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