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Insect

Pioneer

Belenois aurota

IUCN: Least Concern
Pioneer (Belenois aurota) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Vaishali Nagar, Jaipur, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Belenois aurota
Family
Pieridae, order Lepidoptera
Group
Insect
Conservation status
Least Concern

A bold white butterfly with dark borders.

  • Spot it White wings edged and veined in dark brown.
  • Home Open scrub and gardens.
  • Food web Caterpillars feed on caper plants; adults pollinate flowers.
  • Why it matters Pollinates flowers, and its caterpillars link caper plants to birds and lizards in the food chain.

Read more: Belenois aurota on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 3 verified records of this species on iNaturalist, between 2019 and 2026, in Jaipur and Amberi.[20]

Sources

  1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
  2. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  4. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  5. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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