Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26
October 2024 | 16(10): 26046–26048
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN
0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9351.16.10.26046-26048
#9351 | Received 06 August 2024
| Final received 30 September 2024 | Finally accepted 03 October 2024
New record of the antlion Palpares contrarius
Walker, 1853 (Insecta: Neuroptera:
Myrmeleontidae) in Tamil Nadu, India
Pearline Esther Anita 1 &
J. Logamanya Tilak 2
1,2 Assistant Professor, Department
of Zoology, Madras Christian College, Tambaram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600059,
India.
1 anitapearline@mcc.edu.in (corresponding author), 2
tilak@mcc.edu.in
Editor: Kushal Choudhury, Bodoland University, Kokrajhar, Assam, India.
Date of publication:
26 October 2024 (online & print)
Citation:
Anita, P.E. & J.L. Tilak (2024). New record of the antlion Palpares
contrarius Walker, 1853 (Insecta:
Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae)
in Tamil Nadu, India. Journal of
Threatened Taxa 16(10): 26046–26048. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9351.16.10.26046-26048
Copyright: ©
Anita & Tilak 2024. 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: The authors wish to thank the principal, Madras
Christian College for his unwavering encouragement in pursuing research.
Madras
Christian College (MCC) is a 320 acre scrub jungle
with a plethora of flora and fauna peculiar to the urban landscape. The campus
is home to many insects like the butterflies and moths, dragonflies and
damselflies, beetles and weevils, and many more groups of insects. A few
insects are rarely seen because of their cryptic lifestyle where their
existence is rarely seen in the open or they spend less time conspicuous to
human identification. One such group is the order Neuroptera,
which includes the lacewings, mantidflies, and
antlions. The antlion under the family Myrmeleontidae,
with its slender body, is often mistaken for damselfly except for its curved or
clubbed antenna (Mares 1999) and its distinct fluttering flight (poor fliers).
Neuroptera consists of over 5,939 species in 15 families world over (Figure 1) (Pandher
2024) and about 337 species under 120 genera in India (Figure 2) belonging to
11 families (Oswald 2023) in India (Figure 1) of which 128 species from 69
genera and 11 families are reported from northeastern India (Gosh 2000). The
family Myrmeleontidae is the largest group in Neuroptera and is popularly called the antlions, consisting
of over 2,000 species the world over (Engel et al. 2018). Among the many groups
of family Myrmeleontidae, genus Palpares
are large-sized antlions with magnificently speckled wings with dark spots and
patterns. The lifecycle of the species of Myrmeleontidae
is complicated as most of their life is spent as a larva inside the soil and
debris and the adult stage is relatively for a short period with an average
lifespan ranging from 20 to 25 days (Yasseri & Parzefall 1996).
The insect
is cylindrical and long with a small head, short thorax with subequal wings,
and a relatively long 10-segmented abdomen. The head is small, hypognathous
with lateral eyes and a pair of segmented antennae longer than the head. Legs
are slender or stout based on species.
Insect
collection details
Collector’s
name: Dr. Anita Pearline Esther
Collection
date and time: 12 June 2023 & 2015 h.
Collection
locality: An illuminated house located near scrub vegetation in the Madras
Christian College Campus, Tambaram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600059, India (12.91810N
& 80.12420E).
Source for
identification: S.K. Ghosh 2000. Neuroptera fauna of
northeastern India and Chandra et al. 2011.
Fauna of Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh).
Genus Palpares Rambur, 1842
The genus Palpares consists of the most distinguishable and
attractive species of the antlions. The species are differentiated on a relatively
minor scale of differences in the marking on the forewings, hindwings, sinuation, and the length of the antenna.
Palpares contrarius (Walker,
1853)
It is a
large species found mostly in Africa, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka and seen
in isolated parts of India (Figure 2) like Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka,
Mizoram, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh (Ghosh & Sen 1977; Ghosh 2000;
Chandra & Sharma 2013; Giacomino & Abraham
2018). The insect is large with a wingspan of more than 110 mm in length (Image
1). The antenna is black; thorax with three dark stripes; forewings undulating
in the borders, mostly pale in colour, median band
crosses the wing, stigma spot projects towards the median, distinct with no
spot at the fork of the cubitus in the hind wing but has dark bands or spots
spread across the hind wing. The margin of the forewing is sinuate, tips of the
hind wings do not falcate. Abdomen is darker towards the apex (Ghosh 2000;
Chandra et al. 2011).
Entire
insect: Large (Image 2).
Head: Small
with antenna, prominent lateral eyes (Image 2b), antenna longer than the head, multisegmented, black, clubbed, and flattened at the tip.
Vertex: Has
two black bands and a black spot behind the hind band (Image 2c).
Thorax:
Pronotum has a median stripe and also a stripe on either side. The mesonotum and metanotum have
three interrupted black stripes.
Wings:
About 55 mm per wing (Image 2d), pterostigma inconspicuous, wings undulating
along the hind border.
Forewing: A
pale brown tint, especially at the tip, the forewing has four oblique dark
brown bands on the disc (Image 2). The first band is broken at the center, with
a spot between it and the base; the second band extends to the hind border; the
third band is shorter; and the fourth band is interrupted at the middle.
Hindwing:
Three dark brown bands: the apical band wider toward the hind border, the stigmal band extending to the hind border with a projection
towards the tip of the median band, the median band reaching the fore-and hind
border, and an oblique blackish streak along the postcosta
on the hind border (Image 2e).
The
incidence of Palpares contrarius
in Madras Christian College is a new record in Tamil Nadu. This was confirmed,
and the specimen was deposited in the Zoological Survey of India, Chennai
Station (Reg. No. I/NE-01 Dtd. 01.09.2023).
For
figures & images - - click here for full PDF
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