List of butterflies of Japan

Location of Japan

This is a list of butterflies of Japan. About 327 species are known from Japan.[1]

Japan is home to a nine forest ecoregions, which reflect its climate and geography. The islands that constitute Japan generally have a humid climate, which ranges from warm subtropical in the southern islands to cool temperate on the northern island of Hokkaidō.

Japan lies at the convergence of three terrestrial ecozones, the Palearctic, Indomalaya, and Oceania, and its flora and fauna combine elements from all three. The ecoregions that cover the main islands of Japan, Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, and Shikoku, along with the nearby islands, are considered part of the Palearctic ecozone. The island arcs of southern Japan, the Ryukyu Islands to the southwest and the Ogasawara Islands to the southeast, are home to subtropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregions; the Nansei Islands subtropical evergreen forests ecoregion is part of the Indomalaya ecozone, while the Ogasawara subtropical moist forests of the Ogasawaras is part of the Oceania ecozone.

The terrestrial ecoregions are 1 Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests:- Hokkaidō deciduous forests, Nihonkai evergreen forests, Nihonkai montane deciduous forests, Taiheiyo evergreen forests, Taiheiyo montane deciduous forests 2 Temperate coniferous forests :- Hokkaidō montane conifer forests, Honshū alpine conifer forests 3 Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests :- Nansei Islands subtropical evergreen forests, Ogasawara subtropical moist forests.

The most important and threatened butterfly habitat in Japan is Satoyama a Japanese term applied to the border zone or area between mountain foothills and arable flat land.

Butterflies of Japan

Hesperiidae

Papilionidae

Pieridae

Lycaenidae

Nymphalidae

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Current Checklist of Japanese Butterflies; Inomata T., Uémura Y., Yago M., Jinbo U. and Ueda K.; The Entomological Society of Japan; 2010-2012

Important literature

Papers by Shonen Matsumura, Alfred Ernest Wileman, Atuhiro Sibatani, Siuiti Murayama, Takashi Shirôzu, Richard Paget Murray, Oliver Erichson Janson, papers in Tyô-to-Ga Series website (open access)

History

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 4/27/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.