Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2016 | 8(2): 8531–8532

 

 

 

 

Report on the genus Herdonia Walker (Lepidoptera: Thyrididae) in Karnataka Western Ghats, India

 

P.R. Shashank

 

Division of Entomology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa Campus, New Delhi 110012, India

spathour@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/jott.1965.8.2.8531-8532 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:52A9DF5D-7508-4AB3-9876-908452AD1DC1

 

Editor: Ian J. Kitching, Natural History Museum, London, UK. Date of publication: 26 February 2016 (online & print)

 

Manuscript details: Ms # 1965 | Received 24 April 2015 | Final received 18 January 2016 | Finally accepted 28 January 2016

 

Citation: Shashank, P.R. (2016). Report on the genus Herdonia Walker (Lepidoptera: Thyrididae) in Karnataka Western Ghats, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 8(2): 8531–8532; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/jott.1965.8.2.8531-8532

 

Copyright: © Shashank 2016. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.

 

Funding: Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi.

 

Conflict of Interest: The author declares no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgments: The authors are thankful to Station In-charge, Regional Research Station Coffee Board, Chettalli, Kodagu, Karnataka for logistics. We gratefully acknowledge Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Network Project on Insect Biosystematics (ICAR-NPIB) and Head, Division of Entomology, New Delhi for financial help.

 

 

 

 

 

The genus Herdonia was erected by Walker (1859) with Herdonia osacesalis from Sylhet, Bangladesh as the type species by monotypy. Warren (1907) and Gaede (1932) described two further species, H. candida and H. papuensis, respectively, from Papua New Guinea, followed over 40 years later by the descriptions of H. margarita from Japan by Inoue (1976) and H. acaresa from Jiangxi, China by Zhu & Wang (1992). Following these isolated descriptions, Inoue (1993) revised the genus, describing 15 new species, then later (Inoue 2001) added a further seventeen new species and one new subspecies. These two publications from the late Professor H. Inoue remain the comprehensive revisions of this genus to date. Of the more than 34 species now known worldwide (Whitaker et al. 2014), only one, H. osacesalis, has been recorded so far from India (Inoue 1993), in the northeastern states in Darjeeling, West Bengal and Khasi Hills, Meghalaya.

 

 

 

 

 

During our recent surveys in Karnataka, conducted as part of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Network Project on Insect Biosystematics (ICAR-NPIB), on 17 March 2015, two males of this genus were collected using a light trap and one specimen was photographed near the Guest House, Regional Research Station Coffee Board, Chettalli, Kodagu, Karnataka (12.380N & 75.8380E; elevation 1050m) (Image 1). The collected specimens were processed following the procedures described by Shashank & Ramamurthy (2014) and they are deposited in the collection of the Division of Entomology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, India (NPC). They were identified as H. thaiensis using the diagnostic characters for the species given in the description by Inoue (1993): unipectinate male antennae; forewing length range 14–16 mm (male); slender uncus; valva with apical half more strongly narrowed; and phallus very slender (Image 2).

 

 

 

 

Valke (2011) reported a species of Herdonia listed as “near thaiensis Inoue” from the Yeoor Hills, Maharashtra, prior to which in India, this genus was considered to be confined to the Himalayan forested areas with heavy rainfall. The flight period is very short and the moths are never found in large numbers. The previously reported distribution of H. thaiensis was Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, northern Sumatra, and western Malaysia (Whitaker et al. 2014). Our study documents the extension of the range of both the genus Herdonia and the species H. thaiensis to the Western Ghats (Kodagu, Karnataka) of peninsular India.

 

 

References

 

 

Gaede, M. (1932). Thyrididae, pp. 743–774. In: Seitz, A. (ed.). The Macrolepidoptera of the World - vol: 10. Fritz Lehmann Verlag, Stuttgart.

Inoue, H. (1976). Some new and unrecorded moths belonging to the families of Bombyces and Sphinges from Japan (Lepidoptera). Bulletin of Faculty of Domestic Sciences, Otsuma Women’s University 12: 153-179.

Inoue, H. (1993). A revision of the genus Herdonia Walker (Lepidoptera: Thyrididae, Siculodinae). Tyo to Ga 44(3): 127–151.

Inoue, H. (2001). Supplementary report of the genus Herdonia Walker including descriptions of seventeen new species and one new subspecies, and notes on the genus Picrostomastis Meyrick, (Thyrididae). Tinea 16: 301–326.

Shashank, P.R. & V.V. Ramamurthy (2014). Redescription of Odontodes aleuca Guenée (Lepidoptera: Euteliidae: Stictopterinae) including intraspecific variation in wing pattern. Entomological News 124(2): 131–138.

Valke, D.V. (2011). Extension of the known distribution of the genus Herdonia Walker (Lepidoptera: Thyrididae) to the Yeoor Hills, Maharashtra, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(9): 2108; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o2913.2108

Walker, F. (1859). List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum. Part 19: 799–1036.

Warren, W. (1907). New Drepanulidae, Thyrididae, Uraniidae and Geometridae from British New Guinea. Novitates Zoologicae 14: 97–186.

Whitaker, T., S. Sutton & H. Barlow (2014). An illustrated guide to the thyridid moths of Borneo. http://www.pyralidsofborneo.org; accessed 19 August 2015.

Zhu, H. & L. Wang (1992). The Thyrididae (Lepidoptera) of China, III: Siculinae 1. Camptochilus Hampson, 2. Herdonia Walker. Sinozoologica 9(9): 203−213.