Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2020 | 12(17): 17380–17382
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6694.12.17.17380-17382
#6694 | Received 10 September 2020 | Final
received 10 November 2020 | Finally accepted 12 November 2020
Blank Swift Caltoris
kumara moorei (Evans,
1926) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) in Dehradun Valley,
Uttarakhand, India: a new record for the western Himalaya
Arun Pratap Singh
Forest Entomology Division,
Forest Research Institute, P.O. New Forest, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248006, India.
ranoteaps@gmail.com
Editor: B.A. Daniel, Zoo Outreach
Organisation, Coimbatore, India. Date of publication:
26 December 2020 (online & print)
Citation: Singh, A.P. (2020). Blank Swift Caltoris
kumara moorei (Evans,
1926) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) in Dehradun Valley,
Uttarakhand, India: a new record for the western Himalaya. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(17): 17380–17382. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6694.12.17.17380-17382
Copyright: © Singh 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: None.
Competing interests: The author
declares no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: Help of Tribhuwan
Singh (JRF) is acknowledged for dissection of the specimen genitalia.
Caltoris kumara
(Moore, 1878)
(Hesperiidae: Hesperiinae: Baorini) is known to occur as three races. The nominate race C. k. kumara (Moore, 1878) occurs from northern Gujarat to
southern India (Western Ghats –(Maharashtra southwards to Kerala, Bangalore,
Tamil Nadu), Madhya Pradesh, and Chattisgarh). The second race C. k. moorei (Evans, 1926) is found from western Nepal to
Myanmar (Dawnas), through Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India besides West Bengal, Bangladesh, and
southern Yunnan (China). While the third
race C. k. lanka is restricted
to Sri Lanka (Wynter-Blyth 1957; Smith 1989, 2006; Zhang et al. 2010; Kehimkar 2016; Gasse 2017). The species is known to prefer forested areas
up to 1,950m and is in flight from January–December (Kehimkar
2016), however, the species has never been reported from Uttarakhand or even
the western Himalaya (Singh & Sondhi 2016).
On 21 September 2018 the author
recorded C. k. moorei (Evans, 1926) in the New Forest Campus of Forest Research
Institute, Dehradun (30.3410N & 79.9970E; 670m),
India. The butterfly was trapped in the
window of the Forest Research Institute building. The specimen was collected, pinned, and
preserved as an unidentified specimen, however, it was recently identified by
the author based on wing morphology and its genitalia. Distinctive morphological features of this
individual (female; forewing length: 21mm; Image 1) being: no spot in upper
forewing cell area, prominent large round spots in 1b in the upper forewing inner
edge which is visible as a diffuse spot on the underside (Wynter-Blyth
1957). The female genitalia was
dissected (Image 2, Figure 1) and the species was identified and compared with
that of three other congeners [C. confusa
(Evans, 1932); C. philippina (Herrich-Schäffer, 1869) & C. tulsi
(de Nicéville, [1884]] in the Caltoris
group (Devyatkin 2010). In the female genitalia of C. k. moorei the postvaginal plate
(PPL) is distally concave, with its outer angles acute and lateral lobes of the
antevaginal plate projections are only slightly narrower
than PPL which is distinct from others (Devyatkin
2010) .
The larval food plants of this
species are known to be Poaceae (Robinson et al.
2010), Bambusa (Swinhoe 1913; Wynter-Blyth 1957), Bambusa
vulgaris (Kalesh & Prakash 2015), Bambusa tuldoides (Nitin
et al. 2018), Imperata cylindrica (Wynter-Blyth 1957; Robinson et al.
2010), Ochlandra scriptoria (Kalesh & Prakash 2015), Ochlandra
travancorica (Kalesh
& Prakash 2015), and Oryza sativa (Davidson & Aitken
1890). Amongst these the genus Bambusa is present at a number of places in the New
Forest Campus in plantations, botanical garden, bambusetum
and also as clumps in hedge-groves, thus it also likely that the species is
breeding here but needs further investigation.
This is the first record of this species
from the state of Uttarakhand, India and the western Himalaya.
For
figure & images. - - click here
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