Abstract

Butterflies are known to play an important role in pollination and have been a target for several taxonomical and ecological studies. Butterflies are particularly used as indicators of various environmental issues, such as environmental change, habitat land use changes, environmental pollution, etc. In the present review, we collected information on their morphology, distribution, and wintering, and analyzed the three traits for all the endangered butterfly species (n=14). Fourteen previous studies were used for this review. For the morphological analysis, both Aporia crataegi (56.0 and 66.5 mm for male and female, respectively) and Argynnis nerippe (62.5 mm) were determined to have the longest wingspan, and Cigaritis takanonis the shortest (29.0 mm). In terms of distributional analysis, five species (Hipparchia autonoe, Sinia divina, Protantigius superans, Chalinga pratti, and Plebejus subsolanus) used the forest center habitat at high elevation, but nine species used the forest boundary habitat at low elevation. For the wintering analysis, ten species were found to spend the winter as larvae, and P. superans and P. subsolanus spent the winter as eggs; S. divina spent the winter as a pupa. This review is the first to comprehensively summarize the ecological characteristics (morphology, distribution, and wintering) of the whole endangered butterfly species in South Korea. In particular, the review could provide scientific information on the endangered butterflies to establish their future restoration plans.