Diversity of butterflies present in the Police School Rafael Reyes of Santa Rosa of Viterbo, Boyaca, Colombia (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea)

Between February and July 2013, butterflies were collected at the Escuela de Policia Rafael Reyes of the municipality of Santa Rosa de Viterbo, Boyaca, Colombia. The study area was divided into three sampling sites according to their characteristics of the landscape: Human Settlement (HS), Timber Forest (TF) and Native Bush (NB). The object of this work was to study the butterfly fauna and learn about their diversity in a high Andean ecosystem. 1.049 individuals distributed in 37 species, 31 genera, 11 subfamilies and 4 families, were observed, using an entomological net in 216 hours/person sampling. The sites HS, TF and NB registered 27 species with 545 individuals, 20 species in 356 individuals and 11 species with 148 individuals, respectively. The most abundant family in the study area was Nymphalidae (62.5%), followed by Pieridae (25.2%), Hesperiidae (9.43%) and finally Lycaenidae (2.76%). In general, Pedaliodes phaea (Hewitson, 1862) and Colias dimera Doubleday, 1847 were the two most abundant species. Of the recorded species, four are considered as new records, two in the Nymphalidae family, one in Pieridae and one in Hesperiidae. This work contributed to a new list of species of butterflies for the department and may be used, in future research works on biodiversity in Andean areas to establish and implement conservation strategies in these zones.