Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 August 2020 | 12(11): 16632–16635
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5446.12.11.16632-16635
#5446 | Received 03 October 2019 | Final
received 31 July 2020 | Finally accepted 05 August 2020
New records of hoverflies of the
genus Volucella Geoffroy (Diptera: Syrphidae) from Pakistan
along with a checklist of known species
Muhammad Asghar Hassan 1,
Imran Bodlah 2, Anjum Shehzad 3 &
Noor Fatima 4
1,2,4 Department of Entomology, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid
Agricultural University, Rawalpindi 46000, Pakistan.
3 National Insect Museum, National
Agriculture Research Centre, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.
1 kakojan112@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 imranbodlah@gmail.com, 3 nim.anjum@gmail.com,
4 noorfatima8482@gmail.com
Editor: R.M. Sharma,
Zoological Survey of India, Pune, India Date of
publication: 26 August 2020 (online & print)
Citation:
Hassan, M.A., I. Bodlah, A. Shehzad & N. Fatima (2020). New records
of hoverflies of the genus Volucella Geoffroy
(Diptera: Syrphidae) from
Pakistan along with a checklist of known species. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(11): 16632–16635. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5446.12.11.16632-16635
Copyright: © Hassan et al. 2020. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction,
and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to
the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: Self-funded.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Natural Insects Museum, Islamabad
(NIM) Pakistan for providing lab facilities and photographs of previously known
species (V. ruficauda) and current new
records. We are also thanks to Miss Surya Sukrutham
for critically reviewing and suggesting edits to improve the language of this
manuscript.
The genus Volucella
Geoffroy, 1762 belongs to the tribe Volucellini
of the subfamily Eristalinae, which appears to mimic
bumblebees or wasps. The adults are
characterized by their large, broad and robust body, extended downward face and
plumose arista, feathered with long hairs and cell R1 closed before the wing
border (van Veen 2010). This genus
comprises of three species groups—Bombylans, Pellucens, and Zonaria—based on
their colouration and external body appearance (Barkalov
2003). The members of bombylans group are long-haired bumblebee mimic hoverflies,
the pellucens group are mostly black species with
short hair that have their second abdominal tergites completely pale or with at
least a pair of yellow to pale brown spots, and the zonaria
group have striped abdomens (wasp mimics).
So far known, their larvae have different modes of feeding: first those
larvae obtained from wounds caused by goat moths on old deciduous trees feed on
wet material accumulated by the action of moths. The second type inhabit the nests of social
wasps and bumble bees and are detritivores and larval predators, (except Volucella inflata,
that appears to live in tunnels made by other insects in which sap and insect
faeces/tree humus provide a sub-aqueous mix).
The third type are scavengers and facultative or obligatory predators or
ectoparasitoids (Rotheray
1999; Speight 2003).
In the process of compiling the checklist of the
family Syrphidae, 81 species under 42 genera of
hoverflies are recorded from Pakistan (Shehzad et al. 2017; Hassan et al.
2018a,b, 2019, 2020) in comparison with Indian hoverflies which are 357 species
in 69 genera (Ghorpadé 2015). The genus Volucella
Geoffroy, 1762 is recently reported from Pakistan (Shehzad et al. 2017) and
the current study aims to update the list of known and new records of this
genus.
Material and Methods
The adult specimens of the new country records were
collected from the flowers of Buddleja davidii at Kuldana, Murree,
Punjab, Pakistan. The photographs of the previously known species (V. ruficauda) were obtained from the National Insect
Museum, Islamabad, Pakistan. The
collected specimens were identified by using Choi et al. (2006) and further details are
provided in remarks. The specimens were
photographed using Olympus SZX7 stereomicroscope attached with a Sony CCD
digital camera. The identified specimens
are deposited in the insect collection at National Insect Museum, Islamabad and
Laboratory of Biosystematics, Pir Mehr
Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The list of all known species is compiled
from Ghorpadé (2015) and Shehzad et al. (2017).
Results
The present study was conducted to update the genus Volucella from Pakistan based on previous
literature. As a result, Volucella pellucens tabanoides Motschulsky, 1859
is a new record.
Taxonomy
Genus Volucella Geoffroy,
1762
Diagnostic characters: Volucella are large,
broad-bodied hoverflies. They can easily
be diagnosed by the downwardly extended face, with moderately long third
antennal segment with basal arista, arista plumose; abdomen oval in shape; legs
simple; wings with marginal cell closed, anterior cross-vein distinctly before
middle of discal cell; apical portion of fourth vein
distinctly recurrent; second vein bristle at base.
Volucella peleterii (Macquart, 1834) (Image
1A–C)
Material examined: #103, 1 male, PMAS-Arid Agriculture
University, Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan
(33.6470N & 73.0830E, 511m).
Diagnostic characters: Pubescence on the body
usually short, not dense; antennae and head wholly orange; epistome
produced with short yellowish, with some black hairs, central bump distinct
(Image 1C); thorax brownish-orange, scutellum orange with golden hairs sometime
mixed with black hairs; wings brownish (Image 1A); legs orange with short
orange pubescence (Image 1B); abdomen with tergite 1 and base of second grey
livid, tergite with three largely triangular spot in the centre, tergite 4 with
a little tinged with brown towards the tip (Image 1A).
Distribution: Pakistan: Azad Jammu & Kashmir:
Muzaffarabad; Gilgit-Baltistan: Gilgit; Punjab:
Murree (Shehzad et al. 2017). India:
Jammu & Kashmir (Ghorpadé 2015). A single male specimen of this species at
Department of Entomology, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University and possibly
collected from Punjab province of Pakistan [deposited at Department of
Entomology, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University].
Volucella pellucens tabanoides Motschulsky, 1859 (Image 2A–C)
Material Examined: #104, 2 males, 1 female,
18.vii.2018, Kuldana, Murree, Rawalpindi, Punjab,
Pakistan (33.9250N &
73.4050E, 1,928m), leg. M.A. Hassan.
Diagnostic characters: Pubescence on the body usually
short, not dense; head tawny, frons little produced, antennae orange (Image
2C). Thorax shining black, brownish
along humeri and along the side margins, scutum
posteriorly with distinct brown triangular macula (V. pellucens tabanoides Motschulsky); scutellum tawny with long black bristles
along margin (Image 2A); pleuron black; legs black, knees a little brownish-orange
(Image 2A-B). Abdomen short-ovate,
second segment wholly yellowish-white remaining black, pubescence on abdomen
black except along the basal margin of second abdominal segment white; wings,
veins on basal half pale orange, a distinct black marks in middle and at tip,
the veins along hind margins blackish, squamae brownish with orange margins and
fringe, halter brown (Image 2A).
Remarks: Coi et al. (2006)
remarked that there is a clear difference between Far Eastern and European
subspecies of V. pellucens especially
in females. Females of V. p. tabanoides (Russian far east, Mongolia, China, Korea,
and Japan; Oriental region can be distinguished from those of V. p.
pellucens (widespread in western
Palaearctic region) by their scutum with distinct brown triangular prescutellar macula.
Based on this remarks about V. p. tabanoides
on distribution probably present in the Oriental region and scutum
posteriorly with distinct brown triangular macula; the Pakistani V. pellucens species should be V. p.
tabanoides.
We are, however, not sure about the subspecies status of the Indian V.
pellucens reported from Jammu &
Kashmir and Uttarakhand.
Host plant: Buddleja
davidi Franch.
Volucella ruficauda Brunetti, 1907 (Image 3A–C)
Diagnostic characters: This species can easily be
diagnosed by body with densely covered pubescence (Image 3A–B); head black,
vertex in female with yellow bristles, epistome
produced with short black pubescence (Image 3C); thorax black with mixed
yellowish and black bristles, scutellum orange with long yellowish bristles;
wings yellowish grey with brownish suffusion in middle (Image 3A); legs
brownish (Image 3B); abdominal tergite 2 with large triangular spots on lateral
sides, remaining black (Image 3A), abdominal tergite 3–5 with red hairs (Image
3B).
Distribution: Pakistan: Gilgit-Baltistan,
Deosai (Shehzad et al. 2017). India: Jammu & Kashmir and Sikkim (Ghorpadé 2015).
Key to the species of genus Volucella
for Pakistan
Body densely pubescent (Image 3A–B); face black (Image
3C) ……......................................……… ruficauda
- Body bare;
face yellowish-orange
….......................................................................................................…
2
Abdominal tergite 2 wholly yellowish-white (Image 2A);
thoracic dorsum shining black, brownish along humeri and
along the side margins (Image 2A)
........................................................................... pellucens
- Abdominal
tergite 2 almost entirely black (Image 1A); thoracic dorsum brownish-orange
(Image 1A)
…………………....................................................................................................................................………….
peleterii
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