# India home to 13,703 butterfly and moth species: ZSI catalogue 2026-08-08T19:50:13+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet India is home to 13,703 species of butterflies and moths, or 8.25% of the world's lepidoptera, according to a new catalogue by Zoological Survey of India scientists Navneet Singh and Rahul Joshi. Published in the journal Zootaxa after 12 years of field work, museum curation, and literature verification, the catalogue lists 1,417 butterfly species and 12,286 moth species across 3,705 genera and 102 families. The Press Information Bureau said the work bridges taxonomic gaps that persisted for over a century, giving India an authoritative baseline inventory of its lepidoptera diversity. ## Coverage - thehindu.com Tags: biodiversity, butterflies, catalogue, Lepidoptera, moths, ZSI Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/india-home-to-13703-butterfly-and-moth-species-zsi-catalogue/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/india-home-to-13703-butterfly-and-moth-species-zsi-catalogue/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes.