New records of Cerambycidae ( Insecta : Coleoptera ) from Madhya Pradesh , India

Acknowledgements: Authors are grateful to Dr. K. Venkataraman, Director, ZSI, for providing necessary facilities and encouragements. Thanks are also due to Madhya Pradesh Forest Department for providing necessary permissions and support to carry out the present work. Wood is an important renewable but easily biodegradable raw material, prone to predation by a large number of insect wood-borers in the logging centres. So, felling of trees in the forests provide abundant food material to the insect wood-borers, which under favorable conditions, multiply rapidly. Deterioration of wood by one of the major wood-borers, Cerambycidae is a chronic phenomenon the world over, more particularly in countries lying within the latitudes of the tropics. These insects, both in their larval and adult stages usually impact live, dead and dying trees in the forest stands, to felled logs in extraction centres, to timber in storage and in human use, and to creepers. The longhorn beetles or Cerambycidae are classified together with Chrysomelidae and Bruchidae in the superfamily Chrysomeloidea. The long antennae, absence of a beak, and characteristic tarsi serve to separate most adults of this very large family from other beetles. The family Cerambycidae currently contains more than 35,700 described species and sub-species in the world and over 1,500 species in India (Norbert Delahaye Abstract: The present study reports new distribution records of seven species of Cerambycid beetles belonging to seven genera of seven tribes and under two subfamilies from Madhya Pradesh. As a result, based on the past literature and the present study, a total of 18 species of Cerambycidae are known from Madhya Pradesh. The paper also provides detailed diagnostic characters of the eight studied species.

Wood is an important renewable but easily biodegradable raw material, prone to predation by a large number of insect wood-borers in the logging centres.So, felling of trees in the forests provide abundant food material to the insect wood-borers, which under favorable conditions, multiply rapidly.Deterioration of wood by one of the major wood-borers, Cerambycidae is a chronic phenomenon the world over, more particularly in countries lying within the latitudes of the tropics.
These insects, both in their larval and adult stages usually impact live, dead and dying trees in the forest stands, to felled logs in extraction centres, to timber in storage and in human use, and to creepers.
The longhorn beetles or Cerambycidae are classified together with Chrysomelidae and Bruchidae in the superfamily Chrysomeloidea.The long antennae, absence of a beak, and characteristic tarsi serve to separate most adults of this very large family from other beetles.
The family Cerambycidae currently contains more than 35,700 described species and sub-species in the world and over 1,500 species in India (Norbert Delahaye pers. comm. 2014).The taxonomic work on Cerambycid beetles of Madhya Pradesh is very scanty.Previously, Chandra et al. (2010) reported 11 species from Madhya Pradesh and presently seven species of longhorn beetles belonging to seven genera of seven tribes under two subfamilies were added to the fauna of Madhya Pradesh (Fig. 1), thus, taking the tally up to 18 species for the state (Table 1).The information on distribution of species was collected from the website of Lamiaires du Monde (2013).

Materials and Methods
Study period: The specimens were collected from different parts of Madhya Pradesh during field surveys of the Zoological Survey of India from 1999 to 2011.
Study Area: Madhya Pradesh is situated at the center of India covering an area of 308.252km 2 and extending between 21.2 0 -26.87 0 N & 74.03 0 -82.81 0 E. Forests, including monoculture plantations, cover nearly 94,689km 2 of the stat.The forest types mainly include sub-tropical hill forests, moist deciduous forests, dry deciduous forests and thorny vegetation.Most of the forests are Sal dominated.Major rivers include Chambal, Narmada and Tapti.
Methods: Cerambycid beetles were collected generally at night with the help of a light trap.The coordinates of the collection sites were recorded using GPS, which were further used in preparing maps of the survey sites in DIVA-GIS (Fig. 1; Table 2).Specimens were studied under Leica EZ4 HD binocular microscope for identification.The identified specimens were deposited in the National Zoological Collection, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.ex, Bamhori FRH, Singhori Wildlife Sanctuary, Raisen District, coll.S. Sambath.Diagnostic characters: Medium-sized (L -41mm, B -14mm) beetle, elongate, slender, ashy-grey, covered with pale yellowish dense pubescence, pronotum darker, head and legs wholly ashy-grey, head vertical, eyes black, subdivided, upper lobe smaller than lower lobe; antenna 11-segmented, as long as body, pubescent, segments ashy-grey throughout with dark brown apical margin, segment-1 robust, segment-3 little longer than 1, rest equal in size; pronotum rectangular, ashy-grey with dense pale yellow pubescence, sparsely punctate, medially, deeply incised, surface gibbous, strongly punctate, lateral margins with acute, prominent spines; scutellum small, tongue shaped, brownish in colour; elytra elongated, basally broad, narrowed towards apex, shoulder hump prominent, basal region densely, coarsely, punctate, these gradually finer towards apex, punctation dark brown in colour on the basal region, elytral apex truncated; venter densely pubescent; legs densely pubescent, femur pedunculate, mid and hind tibia apically spined, tarsal claw almost 90 0 angle.

Hoplocerambyx spinicornis
Distribution: India: Assam, Madhya Pradesh (Dindori), Meghalaya and Sikkim; Afghanistan, Bhutan, Borneo, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and Thailand.Diagnostic characters: Small size (L -12mm, B -5mm) dark brown, ornamented with whitish and blackish patches, bands etc, throughout, head horizontal, eyes little incised, finely faceted, centrally black, surrounded by coppery facets; antennae very small, hardly surpassing the fore leg, segment-1 thickened, segment-3 longest; pronotum globuler, dark brown in color, densely, finely punctate with spars whitish pubescence, 2 semicircular black patches of pubescence prominently marked on either side of the pronotum at the middle; elytra dark brown, pubescence throughout, basal region with off white pubescence, coming downwards along the sutural margin, another 2 longitudinal bands started behind the scutellum forwarding towards apex, gradually out curved towards lateral margin at the middle of elytra, 2 wavy pale whitish bands on either side of elytra just behind the hind leg, 2 more irregular shaped whitish patches of pubescence on the lateral margin of the basal region, apex substrate, lateral angle with small spine; femur dumbbell shaped, tarsal claws more than 90°.
Distribution: India: Madhya Pradesh (Hoshangabad), Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and West Bengal; Myanmar, Nepal.Diagnostic characters: Body medium size (L -20mm, B -11mm), dull black, robust, elongate, ornamented with bands, patches and spots of dull yellow pubescence, head vertical, clypeus glossy brown, wide, transverse, band like, bare, frons elongate, rectangular parallel sided, clothed with dense yellow pubescence extending up to the middle of anterior lobe of eyes, rest bare, excepting a pair of small patches of yellow pubescence located on either side of the mid-longitudinal carina extending from the base up to the vertex, strongly rogues and warty, coarsely punctuate; gena dark brown, large, densely, thickly clothed with similar pubescence, vertex wide, depressed at the bases of antenna, with band of dull yellow pubescence along the posterior lobe of eyes, two more spots of similar pubescence below the eye bar medially with a broad area marked by silvery white pubescence, few warts evident along the outer margin of the posterior lobe of eyes, besides few brown erect hairs distinct along the warts ; eyes black, large, finely faceted, bar broad, anterior lobe large; antenna 11-segmented, much longer than body, all the segments basally white, apically dark brown excluding segment-1, segment-11 wholly dark brown, except segment -2, all the segments widened apically and thickened with pubescence, segment -7 apically with tuft of pubescence, segment-1 small, robust, prominent scar mark at apex, segment-3 longest; pronotum elongate, transverse, both margins constricted; scutellum elongate broadly `U' shaped, dark  Diagnostic characters: Body medium size (L -32mm, B -12mm), yellowish brown, densely pubescent throughout, ornamented with whitish band and patches, head vertical, yellowish brown pubescence with dark brown patches, frons sub-squarish surface smooth, clypeus small, dark brown, eyes sub-divided, lower one much larger than upper one, vertex finely incised in between the eyes, dark brown patches of pubescence in between eyes and anterior margin of pronotum; antenna 11-segmented, stout, densely pubescent, segment-1 robust stout, segment-3 larger than segment-1 and 4, 5 to 11 segments smaller; pronotum elongated, subsquarish, dark brown pubescence throughout, broad, distinct elongated band of whitish pubescence on the lateral margins, slender elongated faint patch on middle, connected the anterior and posterior margins of pronotum, lateral margin with strong tubercles; scutellum broadly tongue shaped; elytra elongated, clothed with brownish to dark brownish patches of pubescence, ornamented with three distinct silky whitish patches: 1 heart shaped close to sutural margin, nearer to basal region on elytra, second one largest among the three, nearest to lateral margin and hind femur, the third one broadly 'V' shaped in between the sutural and lateral margin, very close to apex, apex of the elytra sub rounded, venter brown to dark brown in color, coxal cavities closed, meso-sternal process broad apically truncated, legs stout, femur robust, tibia elongated, tarsal claw not more than 90 0 angle.

Subfamily: Lamiinae
Distribution: India: Himalayas, Madhya Pradesh (Jabalpur); Sri Lanka.Diagnostic characters: Small size, (L -10mm, B -4mm) dark brown, elongated, decorated with white spots, head almost rounded in shape, covered with dense yellowish brown pubescence; eyes divided in two parts, upper lobe smaller than the lower lobe, eyes finely faceted black in colour, gena sub-quadrate, frons subquadrate; antennae black, hardly extending up to the middle of the elytra, covered with yellowish pubescence, 3 rd and 4 th segment of the antennae is larger, 5 th to 11 th segments small, equal in size; pronotum cylindrical, covered with brown pubescence and punctures; pronotum decorated with white patches, 2 laterals on mid dorsal line and other 2 longitudinally at the apex of pronotum, elytra elongated, apex not fully rounded, covered with yellowish brown pubescence; elytra decorated with longitudinal transverse white rounded patch, patches are variable in number, patches arranged in four transverse bands, first and last bands are small, usually composed with two patches; elytra covered with dense longitudinal punctures; scutellum tongue shaped covered with yellowish brown pubescence.
Distribution: India: Madhya Pradesh (Seoni), Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu; Bangladesh, Borneo, China, Indonesia, Japan, North Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Taipei.Diagnostic characters: Body small in size, (L -17mm, B -6mm) dark brown, ornamented with yellowish-brown patches, head small vertical, frons broad sub-squarish, densely pubescent, vertex broad in between the eyes; eyes strongly sub-divided, lower lobe much larger than upper one; antenna 11-segmented, dark brown with yellowish patches of pubescence, inner margin with long hairs, segment 1 small, robust, segment 4 little longer than segment 3, much longer than segment 1; pronotum broader than long, globuler, surface roughen with ridges, densely pubescence, upper surface of the lateral margin medially out curved, lower surface with two prominent tubercles one big and other one small; scutellum small broadly U shaped; elytra parallel sided, ornamented with 2 broad brown patches of pubescence, one in basal region and second one at the middle, deeply largely punctured more in basal region, humeral angle prominent, hairiness more on basal region, 2 long erected patches of brown hairs on either side of sutural margin, 4 small erected brown patches of hairs on either side of the sutural margin close to apical region, declivity on the epical region on elytra, elytral apex somewhat sub rounded; venter dark brown clothed with yellowish to off white pubescence, mesosternal plate slightly raised at the anterio, basal margin substrate, femur stout, tarsal claw less than 90 0 angle.

Discussion
Except for a few notable literatures, proper taxonomic and distributional studies on this economically important insect group are lacking in India.The present work may be considered as the first consolidated account of Cerambycidae of Madhya Pradesh.Altogether, 18 species of longhorn beetles are reported in the present paper.Among them eight species have been collected from different parts of Madhya Pradesh during the present survey by the scientists of the Zoological Survey of India from 1999 to 2011.Of them seven species are reported for the first time from Madhya Pradesh.All the seven species reported here have extended distribution up to the Palaearctic Region except two species, namely, Stenodryas apicalis (Gahan) and Niphona fuscatrix (Fabricius), which are restricted to the Oriental region.All these species are commonly distributed within India, except Neoplocaederus ferrugineus (Linnaeus) reported from Tamil Nadu and Apomecyna histrio (Fabricius) from Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh other than Madhya Pradesh.
India having a mosaic of varied climate and habitat, proper studies on distribution of flora and fauna, especially of these ecologically important insects, are essential for effective implication of conservation strategies.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Collection sites of the eight cerambycidae beetles from Madhya Pradesh with the vegetation cover of the state.