Butterflies of Bangladesh ends at Drik Gallery

A butterfly is a symbol of fragility and restlessness. A mass of butterflies, fluttering from flower to flower, remind us of the childhood days that we spent chasing them in gardens, fields, river banks and green fields. There is a belief that butterflies are the emblem of fortune too. The lovely little day-flying insect is also important in maintaining the ecological balance in many ways. But in reality, butterflies are rarely seen in Dhaka, the city of concrete and crowd.

This deficit may not be cleared overnight, but a group of young environmentalists under the banner “Butterfly of Bangladesh Inventory Team” are working tirelessly to enable city dwellers to see the colourful insect in pictures. The team has so far displayed four photo exhibitions of butterflies at Drik Gallery with the images they have captured from 30 different districts in the last five years. They have indicated 238 species of butterflies in Bangladesh.

The three-day (February 26-28) fourth phase exhibition ended yesterday with a display of 50 species of butterfly from eight different families. The inventory project aims to cover all 64 districts of Bangladesh eventually.

Besides displaying butterflies from an aesthetic point of view, the team also displayed scientific taxonomy of the species that were made available for the exhibition. The title of the exhibition remained the same -- “Chhobi Dekhe Shekha” -- as it was in the last three phases.

Ishtiaq Uddin Ahmad, Country Representative for International Union for Conservation of Nature, Bangladesh attended the opening of the exhibition along with launching of a book cover titled “Butterflies of Bangladesh, Inventory - Fourth Phase”  as chief guest. Professor Monwar Hossain of the Department of Zoology, Jahangirnagar University, provided his expertise to the team to identify the butterfly species. The eight districts covered during the fourth phase of the project are -- Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Jessor, Narail, Bandarban (Only Sadar Upazilla), Bhola, Cox's Bazar and Natore.

The team comprises Mirza Shamim Ahasan Habib, Dr. Monwar Hossain, Tania Khan, Md. Shahtabul Islam, Saifuddin Saif, Avra Bhattacharjee, Kazi Farhed Iqubal, Md. Monowar Mahmud Jewel and Mohammed Wajedul Hoque Khan.