author(s)
Udaya Kumar K, Ramesh Rathod, Vinayak Pai, Karthik NJ and Nagaraj Shastri

abstract
Butterflies are the most fascinating group of insects to humankind, often regarded as flagship species. They are the good bio-indicators of the ecosystem and are very sensitive to changes in the environment. They play an important role in food chain and are valuable pollinators in the local environment. Butterflies dependent on specific host plant in their developmental stages and hence their diversity indirectly reflects the plant diversity of a particular area. With this context an investigation was carried out to document and analyze the community structure, richness and diversity of butterflies in forestry college campus, Sirsi, during which 84 butterfly species belonging to six families were recorded by following round walk method through visual observations of their wing color, patterns and also referring to field guides. The species diversity was found to be 3.34, calculated by using Shannon diversity index. Eurema hecabe represents highest percentage (18.49) of abundance followed by Ypthima huebneri (12.72) in the study area. Nymphalidae family consists of maximum number (33) of butterfly species followed by Lycaenidae (20), Hesperiidae (13), Papilionidae and Pieridae (9 respectively).