An annotated checklist of the economically important family of moths (Lepidoptera: Heterocera: Noctuidae) of the northern Western Ghats, India, with notes on their type species, diversity, distribution, host plants, and an unusual new faunistic record

: This research is based on the surveys conducted from 2015─2018 resulting in identification of 37 species of 25 genera of noctuid moths. From the surveys, three new records including one unusual species namely, Conservula indica (Moore, 1867) are reported in the present study. A total of eight species of this family are reported as endemic. Two species— C. indica and Pyrrhia umbra —are reported first time from the Western Ghats part of Maharashtra. In this communication, notes on host plant, type species, endemic species with their distribution are provided.


INTRODUCTION
Northern Western Ghats is a biodiversity hotspot with a high level of endemic species, facing biodiversity degradation by human exploitation. It is locally known as Sahyadri and is a chain of flat top mountains of about 750 km in length running parallel to western Coast of peninsular India from the river Tapi, southern Gujarat down south to Goa. The global conservation issue is the loss and fragmentation of tropical rainforest. Invertebrates are sensitive to the environmental changes and are important indicators to help us in understanding the effects of habitat fragmentation (Jansen 1997;Miyashita et al. 1998). Ockinger et al. (2010) reported that moths are sensitive to habitat fragmentation and the species whose larvae are monophagous are more affected by the loss of habitat. In recent past, considerable amount of research and conservation efforts have been carried out in this important ecoregion but is not sufficient. We need to record and conserve the species before its extinction.
Noctuid moths are also referred as owlet moths, are economically important group as the larva of most of them feeds on agricultural, horticultural, and forest plants. Correct identification of any species is necessary for development of suitable management practices. Maharashtra is an agriculturally important state of India, where the major occupation of people is agriculture. Despite various other reasons for low crop productivity, insect pest infestation is the major one. The immature stages of many noctuid genera have immense economic impact annually (Kitching 1984). The huge losses caused by them are counted in terms of millions of rupees every year which farmers spend for their control. As per Deshmukh et al. (2021), an additional cost of US$ 49.32 per ha, i.e., 10 times on pesticides was incurred by farmers to control a noctuid pest, Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith, 1797), in Karnataka. In millets, the voracious feeding of the noctuid pest results in complete defoliation (Gahukar & Reddy 2019). Another most dangerous pest is Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner, 1808) and alone is responsible for crop losses over INR 35,000 million annually in India (Kumar & Kapoor 2003). Very recently, the havoc caused by the invasive pest Fall Army Worm S. frugiperda is a classic example of how proper identification of the pest is important to control it in time. The distribution knowledge of such an economically important group of insects is vital for the economy of any country.
The most significant and outstanding contribution on the taxonomy of Indian Noctuidae was made by Hampson (1894Hampson ( , 1895 and published in Fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma in two volumes. The classification of noctuid moth is highly unstable (Mitchell et al. 2000(Mitchell et al. , 2006Fibiger & Lafontaine 2005;Lafontaine & Fibiger 2006). Recently, due to the molecular studies conducted by Zahiri (2011Zahiri ( , 2012) the classification has some stable status. In present study, the classification given by Holloway (2011) has been followed by incorporating subsequent changes (Zahiri et al 2011(Zahiri et al , 2012(Zahiri et al , 2013a(Zahiri et al , 2013bKononenko & Pinratana 2013). The distribution of the species was consulted from published literature (Zote et al. 2006;Sivasankaran et al. 2010Sivasankaran et al. , 2012Kononenko & Pinratana 2013;Shashank & Singh 2014;Kononenko 2016;Das et al 2020;Nagrare et al. 2022).
On perusal of literature, it was found that, some literature is available on the noctuid fauna of southern Western Ghats (Sivasankaran et al. 2010(Sivasankaran et al. , 2012 but no work so far has been carried out on noctuid fauna of this region. Hence, the present study was an taken up with an aim to document the noctuid moths from northern Western Ghats, Maharashtra. This study yielded in enumeration of 88 species of 44 genera from 13 subfamilies of noctuid moths from this region. Perhaps, this is the first report of documenting noctuid moths from this ecologically important biodiversity hotspot.

Study Area
Field visits were undertaken in the northern Western Ghats region to collect and record the noctuid moths. Total 17 places in the northern Western Ghats were surveyed. The area surveyed and the geographical coordinated are given in Table 1 and also presented in Figure 1.

Collection and identification of specimens
Collection of specimens was done by light traps in the night. The collected specimens were euthanized by vapours of ethyl acetate and further processed in the laboratory by standard procedures in lepidopterology. The moths were identified with the help of available literature, viz. Hampson (1894Hampson ( , 1895, Bell &Scott (1937), andHolloway (1987;1988). The classification followed is as per Nieukerken et al. (2011), Zahiri et al. (2010, 2011, and Kononenko & Pinratana (2013). The identified specimens have been deposited in the J TT National Zoological Collections of Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Centre, Pune (ZSI-WRC). Some of the moths from the studied area have been shown in Image 1-3. Figure 1 represents the collection and survey localities. The details of the survey localities are given in Table 1.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The aim of the present study was to ascertain the diversity of noctuid moths from the northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra. As the family has economic importance in agricultural, horticultural, and forest pestdisease, noctuid moths were assessed for their diversity. Proper control measures can be deployed to control the pest if it is identified correctly. Taxonomic documents and taxonomists help the agricultural scientist and the farmers in general to identify the pest correctly. This study was taken up to identify and document the noctuid fauna of the region and the surveys were undertaken during 2015-2018.
A report of monophagous species namely, C. indica (Moore, 1867) in this study formed an unusual new distribution record from the Western Ghats (Earlier recorded from: Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Himachal Contrary to this, in the present study C. indica is recorded from Valmiki Pathar, Satara, India at 610 m altitude. As stated earlier, C. indica is reported from the Indian Himalayan region until this study. Though there are some photographs available on the citizen science website but no voucher based scientific document stating its occurrence from the studied area is available so far. Hence, this study forms an unusual new record of C. indica from the northern Western Ghats based on voucher specimen. Sivasakaran et al. (2017) listed the species in a checklist from Tamil Nadu, Western Ghats, India without photographs of the species. Rigorous studies are required to confirm the gaps areas of record of C. indica between Himalaya and the Western Ghats. Chandra (2008) reported 11 Noctuidae species from Jabalpur. Sivasankaran et al. (2011) reported 154 species of noctuid moths classified under 85 genera and 23 subfamilies from Tamil Nadu part of Western Ghats (Nilgiri Biosphere and Kodaikanal hills). Fayle et al. (2007) collected 44 noctuid species near fields and gardens. They collected 13 noctuid species from both agriculture and forest area among which 25.9% and 24.7% noctuids were from agricultural and forest areas, respectively. Shubhalaxmi et al. (2011) reported 35 noctuid moths from the northern Western Ghats. Gurule & Nikam (2013) recorded 28 species of noctuid moths from Nashik, Dhule, Jalgaon, and Nandurbar districts of northern Maharashtra. Two-hundred-and-ninety-seven species of noctuid moths were reported by Mitra et al. (2019) from Maharashtra following the old system of classification. In majority of the published literature the old system of classification has been followed and they included some erebid moths like Bastilla, Grammodes under noctuid family. The systematic list of the taxa recorded form the study area is as under.