Paintbrush swift butterfly is photographed for the first time in Himachal Pradesh

A species of butterfly that is rare in the western Himalayas, the paintbrush swift butterfly has been photographed and documented for the first time in Himachal Pradesh’s Chamba district. The paintbrush swift, a butterfly species of the Hesperiidae family, was sighted and photographed in the second week of October this year during a field survey conducted under the Wild Bhattiyat Project initiated by the Bhattiyat Forest Range of the Dalhousie Forest Division of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department in 2022. “We have recorded and documented various uncommon butterfly species like the anomalous nawab, blank swift, tailed jay, siren, etc., which are frequently sighted, but the paintbrush swift has been sighted and photographed for the first time in the lower hills of the Dhauladhar mountain range. Lovish Garlani, a butterfly expert and researcher associated with the Forest Department as a technical consultant, detailed the paintbrush swift butterfly’s characteristics.