Journal of Threatened
Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 April 2026 | 18(4): 28734–28738
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9957.18.4.28734-28738
#9957 | Received 27 May 2025 | Final received 25 February 2026| Finally
accepted 07 April 2026
Eastern range extension of the
band-winged grasshopper Pusana rugulosa (Uvarov, 1921) (Insecta: Orthoptera: Acrididae)
in India
Amlanjyoti Gautam 1, Rajnish
Ranjan 2 & Jennifer Lyngdoh 3
1,3 Zoological Survey of India,
North Eastern Regional Centre, Shillong, Meghalaya
793003, India.
2 Zoological Survey of India,
Gangetic Plains Regional Centre, Patna, Bihar 800026, India.
1 gautamamlanjyoti1994@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 rajnish.ranjan2723@gmail.com, 3 lyngdoh16j@gmail.com
Editor: Anonymity requested. Date of publication: 26 April 2026 (online & print)
Citation: Gautam, A., R. Ranjan & J. Lyngdoh (2026). Eastern
range extension of the band-winged grasshopper Pusana
rugulosa (Uvarov, 1921)
(Insecta: Orthoptera: Acrididae)
in India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 18(4): 28734–28738. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9957.18.4.28734-28738
Copyright: © Gautam et al. 2026. 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: The work was conducted as part of the Annual Programme of Research of Zoological Survey of India.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata for providing facilities. The authors would like to thank The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) & Chief Wildlife
Warden, Government of Assam for giving necessary permission vide letter No. WL/FG.31/Research
T.C/33th T.C./2022, Dated 21/12/2022
and 16/03/2024. The authors would also like to thank Uttam Saikia and Bhaskar Saikia of North Eastern Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Shillong for their immense support during preparation of this paper, and Nirmal Sapkota for his assistance
in preservation of the specimens.
The short-horned grasshopper
belongs to the family Acrididae, which is the largest
family under the superfamily Acridoidea (Insecta: Orthoptera) with about 6,891 species worldwide (Cigliano et al. 2025) and 361 species in India (Chand et
al. 2024). The Indian Acrididae are catalogued under
15 subfamilies of which the members of the subfamily Oedipodinae
are commonly called band-winged grasshoppers.
The genus Pusana
was proposed by Uvarov (1940) as a nomen novum for the generic name Pusa
Uvarov, 1921, under the subfamily Oedipodiane.
This genus is distinguishable by its
elongated head; very long and slender hind femur, and a feeble median carina of
the pronotum, an indistinct lateral carina of pronotum, and a median carina of
the pronotum crossed by three deep transverse sulci. Globally, this genus is
represented by three species; of which two species, namely, P. laevis and P. rugulosa,
are known to occur in India (Shishodia et al. 2010;
Chand et al. 2024; Cigliano et al. 2025) and Pusana chayuensis
(Yin, 1984) from China. Among the two species found in India, P. rugulosa has an apparent disjunct distribution in
Bihar, Punjab, and Uttarakhand (Sharma 2017). Whereas, P. laevis has been reported from Bihar, Himachal Pradesh,
and Sikkim (Shishodia et al. 2010).
This study marks the first report
of P. rugulosa from northeastern India as well
as the first report of the genus Pusana from
Assam. A detailed
description of the male and female genitalia of the species is provided.
In 2024, two faunistic surveys
were conducted in Dibru-Saikhowa Biosphere Reserve
(Image 1) located in eastern Assam, where 13 specimens (5 males + 8 females) of Pusana were collected. The specimens were handpicked
from sandy river bank, euthanised with ethyl acetate vapours and dry preserved. These were studied under stereo
zoom microscope in the laboratory. The subfamily level identification is done
based on the extant keys and descriptions (Kirby, 1914; Usmani,
2009; Usmani & Kumar, 2011) and the genus was
determined based on Uvarov (1921) and Kumar & Usmani
(2016). Identification to the species level is based on the morphological
description by Uvarov (1921). The photographs of
holotype catalogued in the orthopteraspeciesfile.org by Cigliano
et al. (2025) were also compared which exhibits morphological similarity with
our specimens. The specimens were processed for genitalic
studies by the methods used by Usmani (2009) and
Kumar et al. (2014). The terminology used for describing male and female
genitalia follows Dirsh (1965) and Slifer (1939), respectively. The specimens are deposited in
the national zoological collection of North Eastern Regional Centre, Zoological
Survey of India, Shillong.
Pusana rugulosa
(Image 2) is
characterized by its notably elongated head, a typical feature of the genus,
with frons less strongly reclined and a hexagonal fastigium
that is slightly inclined and rounded where it meets the frontal ridge. The
eyes are prominently bulging and nearly hemispherical, and the antennae are
filiform, slightly thickened in the apical third. The species can be easily
distinguished from its congener P. laevis as
its habitus is more robust; face and body more densely covered with hairs, the
face is rugulose with numerous, though not dense,
impressed points.
Keys to the Indian species of Pusana Uvarov, 1940
(derived from Uvarov, 1921):
1. Face smooth,
impunctate; pronotum only feebly constricted anteriorly; metazoan almost flat.
Face and body covered with sparse hairs ………………………………….....……
P. laevis, Uvarov,
1921.
2. Face rugulose,
with numerous, though not dense, impressed points; pronotum more constricted
anteriorly, with metazoan convex and distinctly raised above prozona. Face and body more densely hirsute ………………….....…… P. rugulosa, Uvarov, 1921.
The P. rugulosa
in Dibru-Saikhowa are adapted to sandy habitats as it
provides natural camouflage.
The genus Pusana
was proposed by Uvarov (1940) as a nomen novum for the generic name Pusa
Uvarov, 1921, which was identified as a junior
homonym of the mammalian genus Pusa Scopoli, 1771 , used for earless
seals. In his original description of Pusa rugulosa, Uvarov (1921) noted
that the “typical male” was from an “unknown locality,” while the paratypic series was collected “partly from Pusa, Bihar and partly without precise data”. Assessment of
the type material deposited at the Natural History Museum, London (NHMUK), as
cataloged in the Orthoptera Species File (Cigliano et
al. 2025), clarifies that the holotype male actually originated from Punjab,
India. The previously reported range of P. rugulosa
is apparently disjunctive, with established records from Bihar, Punjab, and
Uttarakhand in India (Sharma 2017), and an extranational report from
Afghanistan (Sharma 2017).
This study confirms the range
extension of P. rugulosa to Assam, which now
represents the easternmost known range for the species and the first record of
the genus Pusana from the state of
Assam. While photographic records (Ray 2020) on citizen science platforms such
as iNaturalist have recently suggested the species’
presence in the westernmost part of Assam, the photographs alone are not
sufficient to confirm the record as conspecific with P. rugulosa.
This study provides the necessary taxonomic verification of the occurrence of
this species in Assam through detailed morphological and genital examination of
the collected specimens. Prior to this, the only species of the genus known
from northeastern India was Pusana laevis (Uvarov, 1921),
recorded from Sikkim by Shishodia et al. (2003).
This finding bridges a
geographical gap in the species distribution suggesting that P. rugulosa may have a broader and more continuous range
across northern and eastern India than previously thought. It highlights the
potential for undiscovered populations in intervening regions, such as West
Bengal or other parts of north-eastern India.
Description of genitalia
Male (Image 3A–D): Supraanal
plate elongate angular, apex obtusely rounded, as long as wide; circus small,
conical, longer than supra-anal plate; subgenital
plate broad, longer than wide, apex obtusely conical, covered with setae. Epiphallus with narrow bridge and undivided medially; ancorae short with pointed apices, incurved; lophi bilobate and lobiform;
Aedeagus flexure, apical valve short and broad, moderately curved, apex
pointed, narrower and shorter than basal valve, connected with basal valve with
flexure; basal valve broad, narrow towards the slightly acute apex, gonopore
process short with acute apex.
Female (Image 3E–H): Supraanal
plate broad with obtuse apex, circus short and conical, shorter than supraanal plate; three times as long as wide with obtusely
conical apex, subgenital plate with posterior margin
semicircular, posterior marginal setae present; egg guide broad and conical,
apex obtusely rounded; spermatheca with apical diverticulum shorter than the
pre-apical diverticulum, tubular; pre-apical diverticulum long, broad, sac
like; ovipositor valves short, robust and curved; dorsal valve broad, as long
as the lateral apodeme, apical tip short and acute; ventral valve with apical
tip short and acute, mesial valve dilated apically.
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IMAGES - - CLICK HERE FOR FULL PDF
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