Jerome Pages was born on 15th April 1949 in France. He is a retired professor of Statistics and butterflies are his passion. In 1994 he visited Pakistan for the first time for a butterfly-collecting expedition and thence decided to carry out serious study of the butterflies of this unexplored country. Mr. Pages regularly travelled across Pakistan onwards, totaling around two dozen visits, and worked in places like Astor, Attock, Chitral, Deosai, Hunza, Jehlum, Kaghan, Kallar Kahar, Kashmir, Khanpur Hazara, Khaplu, Margalla hills, Murree-Galiyat, Skardu, Swat etc. He did not only contribute to the known range of Pakistani butterflies and documented many species previously unrecorded from the country but also discovered many taxa (species and subspecies) new to science. Annie`s Rockbrown (Pseudochazara annieae) which is displayed in background of the blog poster, is one of his discoveries which he collected from Kalam, Swat (KPK) and described it in 2007 as a new species. Annie is his wife whom he dedicated this new finding. In 2016, he collaborated with the renowned Czech lepidopterist Vadim Tshikolovets to combine his research into a book titled “The Butterflies of Pakistan.”
Jerome Pages is the mentor of PBS founder and kindly keeps sharing his knowledge and experience with PBS team on regular basis. On 15th April 2024, Pakistan Butterfly Society has decided to celebrate his 75th Birthday as the first National Butterfly Day in Pakistan. This time of the year is an ideal season for butterfly-watching in most of the country (except extreme Northern parts of Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral). Dedicating this day to Mr. Pages is a humble tribute from PBS to him for his being the torchbearer of butterfly studies in our country. Unfortunately, PBS had to cancel its planned events for this day (15th April 2024) due to rainy weather throughout Pakistan. PBS is determined to hold some outdoor and virtual (online) events for the next National Butterfly day on 15th April 2025.