Three new records of odonates (Insecta: Odonata) from Sindhudurg District, Maharashtra, India

: Genus Indolestes Fraser, 1922 and Dysphaea Selys, 1853 were previously known from Goa, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, parts of Gujarat, and eastern India. In this paper, we report the first confirmed records of Indolestes gracilis davenporti Fraser, 1930 and Dysphaea ethela Fraser, 1924 based on a specimen collected from Sindhudurg District, Maharashtra, India. We have also provided additional records of Macrodiplax cora (Brauer, 1867) from Maharashtra based on photographic evidence from Sindhudurg District.


INTRODUCTION
The Sindhudurg District of Maharashtra is well-known for numerous new discoveries of faunal species as a result of extensive surveys carried out by researchers across the country (Biju & Bossuyt 2009;Mirza et al. 2014;Padhye 2014;Gower et al. 2016;Pati et al. 2016;Sayyed et al. 2016;Joshi & Sawant 2019Praveenraj & Thackeray 2020;Sulakhe et al. 2020;Sayyed & Sulakhe 2020;Bhosale et al. 2021;Joshi et al. 2022). The district harbours mixed types of vegetation including moist deciduous, dry deciduous, and semi-evergreen forests (Kulkarni 1988;Sawant et al. 2023). It also has a diverse range of habitats, including grassland, open lateritic plateaus, wetlands, mangroves, and freshwater swamps (Satose et al. 2018;Sreedharan & Indulkar 2018). Recent documentation of Odonata diversity of the Sindhudurg District resulted in more than 90 species of odonates documented from Amboli & Chaukul village, recognised as one of the most biodiverse regions of Maharashtra State (Tiple & Koparde 2015;Sawant et al. 2022Sawant et al. , 2023. Ten out of them resulted in the new records to the state of Maharashtra. Koli & Dalvi (2021), Koli et al. (2021), and Dalvi & Koli (2022) reported a total of five Odonata species from Sindhudurg District, all of which are first confirmatory records to the state of Maharashtra. In this paper, we report three new records of odonates from Maharashtra, India, and their distribution maps are provided.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
We surveyed Amboli-Chaukul and Dodamarg region of Sindhudurg District, Maharashtra from May 2022 to December 2022. One of the records is based on previous surveys conducted outside of this study area in the year 2020. The details including study localities are provided in Table 1. Specimens were photographed and collected from non-protected areas for identification purpose. All the specimens are deposited at the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Pune, Maharashtra, India (Table 1). All field photographs were taken with Canon 760D DSLR camera 100 mm F/2.8 macro lens & Nikon D5300 70-300 mm f/4.5-6.3G. Specimens were Identified with the help of Fraser (1933Fraser ( , 1934Fraser ( , 1936 Kosterin (2015), and Subramanian et al. (2018).
Morphological terms are referring to Garrison et al. (2010). Distribution maps are based on the data given by Subramanian et al. (2018) and Anonymous (2023a,b,c). Maps are created using QGIS v3.10.2. One male specimen was found perching on a tree branch at about two feet above the ground. Despite multiple visits to the same locality, only one male specimen was observed at this site. It is a medium sized damselfly, brown in its immature form and turns pale blue later. Male can be identified with two triangular spots on posterior lobe of prothorax, pterothorax with brownish black antihumeral stripes, wavy in its lower side, S9 is black whereas S10 is completely blue (Image 1a, b). In dorsal view, cerci are slightly rounded in shape, directed inwards and meet at the apices with protruding end, twice as long as S10 with robust spines on its outer border (Image 1c). Paraprocts short, broader at the base with blunt apices. Genus Indolestes Fraser, 1922 globally includes 36 species (Paulson et al. 2022). I. indicus Fraser, 1922, I. assamicus Fraser, 1930, and I. cyaneus (Selys, 1862 are endemic to India, found in northern Eastern Ghats. I. gracilis (Hagen in Selys, 1862) consists of two subspecies, mainly I. gracilis gracilis (Hagen in Selys, 1862) which is endemic to Sri Lanka whereas I. gracilis davenporti along with I. pulcherrimus Fraser, 1924 are endemic to the Western Ghats (Subramanian et al. 2018;Kalkman et al. 2020;Anonymous 2023a). Previous records of I. gracilis davenporti are confined to Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu states (Image 5b). Here we report first confirmed  Image 2). Two male specimens were observed along the side of a hill stream perching on a small shrub Homonia repira, locally known as 'Sherni' (Image 4a). Dysphaea ethela is the only species of the genus found in the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, which can be easily identified by its entire black colouration, transparent wings, and yellow stripes on the body (Image 2a). Cerci are deeply concave inside, widely separated at base, apices flattened inside and meet to an end; paraprocts very short, not visible dorsally (Image 2b,c). The genus Dysphaea Selys, 1853, constitutes a total of nine species distributed in Asia. Out of these, D. gloriosa Fraser, 1938 andD. walli Fraser, 1927 are found in northeastern and eastern India respectively whereas D.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
ethela is a widely spread species found in the Eastern and Western Ghats as well as in central India (Subramanian 2014;Subramanian & Babu 2017). However, Kalkman (2020) excluded D. walli from Indian Odonata checklist because current records are only based on photographic evidence and there are no voucher specimens available to confirm its validity. Within Western Ghats, Dysphaea ethela were earlier recorded from Goa, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, parts of Gujarat state (Anonymous 2023b) (Image 5c). Here we provide first confirmed record of this species to Maharashtra State, India (Image 5a,c).

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on 30 February 2020 (Image 3a). It is a red coloured dragonfly (Golden yellow in its immature stage) and can be easily identified by dumbbell shaped markings on dorsal side of S1-S10.  (Image 5a). This paper fills the gap of the disjunct distribution of the genus Dysphaea into the northern and central Western Ghats. Sawant et al. (2022) provided an annotated checklist of 93 Odonata species from Amboli-Chaukul and Parpoli region with the addition of total six species to the state of Maharashtra. In that, apart from these six species, Dattaprasad Sawant has mentioned the record of D. ethela from Hadpid, Devgad Taluka based on his personal observations (Image 5a). Here we provide the first confirmed record of this species to the state of Maharashtra based on a specimen collected from Bambarde Village. Hence the updated Odonata checklist of Maharashtra has 153 species from 13 families.
Perennial mountain streams originating in the Chandigarh Taluka, Kolhapur District, flows through the Bambarde Village, Dodamarg Taluka, Sindhudurg District and meets Tilari River later. All these are potential breeding places for the D. ethela. Habitat of I. gracilis davenporti is a small seasonal mountain stream which almost dries up after the monsoon. Both of these areas are quite inaccessible to some extent but can be surveyed extensively in future to document the species diversity in these regions. However, increasing pressure of human activities and habitat loss are already affecting the species diversity in Amboli-Dodamarg region. Hence, constant awareness among local people, and scientific studies are needed in order to formulate conservation plans in the near future.