Checklist of terebrantian thrips (Insecta: Thysanoptera) recorded from India

A consolidated systematic list of 333 species of terebrantian thrips, belonging to 118 genera (Insecta: Thysanoptera) recorded so far from India, is provided in this article. The list reveals that the family Thripidae has the lion’s share of 307 species, while Aeolothripidae, Melanthripidae, Merothripidae and Stenurothripidae contain very few species. Further, analysis of the present study shows that around 40% of the listed 333 terebrantian species appear to be endemic based on the comparison of Indian fauna with that of the published data of thrips of adjoining regions. Reports on the occurrence of exotic flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) and Neohydatothrips samayunkur (Kudo) are of concern to the country, as they are notorious for damage to the cultivated plants.

2 6 J a n u a r y 2 0 1 7 | V o l . 9 | N o . 1 | P p . 9 7 4 8 -9 7 5 5 1 0 . 1 1 6 0 9 / j o t . 2 7 0 5 . 9 . 1 . 9 7 4 8 -9 7 5 5 T h r e a t e n e d T a x a The order Thysanoptera is an important group of insects comprising diverse forms such as pests (Ananthakrishnan 1984;Mound 2005), vectors of tospoviruses (Mound 1996), gall makers (Ananthakrishnan 1978(Ananthakrishnan , 1979Raman & Ananthakrishnan 1984), pollinators (Mound & Terry 2001;Nyree et al. 2004;Varatharajan et al. 2016), litter dwelling fungal spore feeders (Mound 2005) and predators (Lewis 1973;Ananthakrishnan 1993). The thysanopterans, commonly referred to as thrips are grouped under the suborders Terebrantia and Tubulifera with a total of 6,155 species in the World, of which the Terebrantia comprises about 2,484 recognized species in 331 genera under eight families (ThripsWiki-referred on 20 December 2016). The highest diversity of thrips occurs in the warm tropical countries of which India is one, and by virtue of having four biodiversity hotspots India harbours nearly 11% of the World thrips fauna. As early as in 1940, Ramakrishna & Margabandhu recorded 232 species of thrips from India, among them 100 belonged to the suborder Terebrantia. Later, Ananthakrishnan & Sen (1980) listed 647 thrips inclusive of 260 terebrantians in their monumental volume on Indian Thysanoptera. Subsequently, Bhatti (1990a) presented a catalogue of thrips of the suborder Terebrantia recorded from the Indian sub-region with 290 species in 124 genera in five families. Another recent article stated that the Indian terebrantian record has 309 species in 116 genera .

Suborder Terebrantia Haliday, 1836
This suborder includes eight families, of which thrips belonging to the following five families, viz., Aeolothripidae, Melanthripidae, Merothripidae, Stenurothripidae and Thripidae, have been so far collected from India. Among them, Thripidae is the biggest family represented by a large number of economically important species, wherein 307 species in 105 genera have been recorded in India. Among them 121 are endemic, 33 new records and 22 are new species discovered after the year 1990. The latter data have been arrived at by considering the publication of Bhatti (1990a) as a base, since the above volume discusses information relating to this suborder prior to 1990. On the other hand, the remaining four families revealed only 26 thrips species in 13 genera with a dozen endemic forms. The new record, together with new species comprises a total of 60 thrips as shown in Table 1. While assessing the scenario, it appears that there is a good scope for further discovery of more number of species in India. The scientific names of all the 333 thrips recorded in India are systematically given below under the respective families. It is beyond the purview of this article, however, to provide details relating to each species separately, as the same can be easily retrieved from ThripsWiki. Further, only the valid scientific name of the taxon has been provided here.

Family: Aeolothripidae Uzel, 1895
About 207 species of aeolothripids are recognized worldwide in 24 genera (ThripsWiki--accessed on 20 December 2016), of which 18 species belonging to nine genera have been collected and recorded in India.

Family: Merothripidae Hood, 1914
This family includes 15 species in three genera (ThripsWiki--accessed on 20 December 2016) that are usually found on dead twigs or in leaf litter, where they presumably feed on fungal hyphae (Mound & O' Neill 1974). In India, occurrence of only three species in two genera is known so far.

Family: Stenurothripidae Bagnall, 1923
The World collection record of this family shows a total of only six species in three genera (ThripsWiki-accessed on 20 December 2016), of which, the following two species have been reported from India.

Family Thripidae Stevens, 1829
Thripidae is one of the eight families recognized in the suborder Terebrantia. This family is currently interpreted as comprising more than 2000 described species, divided into four subfamilies, namely Dendrothripinae, Panchaetothripinae, Sericothripinae, and Thripinae (Bhatti 1989). Amongst them, the subfamily Thripinae is the largest and most of the species feed either on plant leaves or flowers, many being pests, but a few species are predatory. In India, presence of 307 species in 105 genera of this family has been recorded.