Journal of
Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2018 | 10(15):
12969–12978
Odonata (Insecta) diversity of Kuldiha
Wildlife Sanctuary and its adjoining areas, Odisha,
eastern India
Subrat Debata ¹
& Kedar Kumar
Swain 2
1 Aranya Foundation, Plot No-625/12, Mars Villa, Panchasakha Nagar, Dumduma,
Bhubaneswar, Odisha 751019, India
2 Office of the Divisional Forest Officer, Chandaka Wildlife Division, Gaja Vihar, Bhubaneswar, Odisha
751003, India
1 subrat.debata007@gmail.com (corresponding
author), 2 kedarswain28@gmail.com
Abstract: A study was carried out to assess the Odonata fauna of Kuldiha Wildlife
Sanctuary, Odisha, eastern
India from November 2012 to October 2013.
During the study a total of 54 species of odonates
including 37 species of dragonflies (Anisoptera) and
17 species of damselflies (Zygoptera) were
recorded. Among the dragonflies, the
family Libellulidae was well represented with 30
species whereas among the damselflies, Coenagrionidae
was well represented with seven species.
Overall, the odonate fauna of Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary accounted for 49.09% of the odonate species known from Odisha
and 10.73% of India. Therefore, further
long-term studies on these lesser-known insect fauna in Kuldiha
Wildlife Sanctuary will be useful in understanding their status over time.
Keywords: Anisoptera, Coenagrionidae,
damselflies, dragonflies, Libellulidae, Zygoptera.
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3463.10.15.12969-12978 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:57B7ABD1-A0FA-4BAF-A7D4-24121B224CC6
Editor: K.A. Subramanian, Zoological Survey of
India, Chennai, India. Date of publication: 26
December 2018 (online & print)
Manuscript details: Ms
# 3463 | Received 24 March 2017 | Final received 13 December 2018 | Finally
accepted 16 December 2018
Citation: Debata, S. & K.K. Swain (2018). Odonata (Insecta) diversity of Kuldiha
Wildlife Sanctuary and its adjoining areas, Odisha,
eastern India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 10(15): 12969–12978; https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3463.10.15.12969-12978
Copyright: © Debata & Swain 2018.
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: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Author
Details: Subrat Debata is a wildlife researcher and naturalist
with special interest on small mammals and waterbirds.
Kedar Kumar Swain is presently working as
Divisional Forest Officer in Chandaka Wildlife
Division, Forest and Environment Department, Government of Odisha.
Author
Contribution: Both the
authors contributed equally in field work. SD designed
and wrote the paper.
Acknowledgements: We are thankful to the Forest Range Officers of Kuldiha
Wildlife Range and Soro Wildlife Range of Balasore Wildlife Division for the logistics and other
field support during the study. We are
thankful to Udit Pratap Das
and Arajush Payra for
allowing us to use some of their photographs.
Introduction
The
order Odonata comprising both dragonflies and
damselflies are believed to have evolved some 250 million years ago
(Subramanian 2005). These aquatic
insects being predators in both larval and adult stages are an important and
widespread component of freshwater ecosystems (Adarsh
et al. 2015) as well as valuable indicators of water quality and landscape
disturbance (Watson et al. 1982; Castella 1987;
Varghese et al. 2014). Globally around
5,952 species of odonates have been described; of
which 503 species have been reported within the geographic limits of India so
far (Joshi et al. 2017).
Odisha is one
of the eastern coastal states of India and being situated along the
amalgamation zone of Chhotanagpur Plateau, Eastern
Ghats Highlands, Lower Gangetic Plain and the Eastern
Coastal Plain’s biogeographic provinces (Ray 2005), represents a mixture of
both Indo-Malayan and Afro-Mediterranean biodiversity elements (Das et al.
2015). Odonata
research in Odisha dates back to the early 1900s when
Laidlaw (1915) and Fraser & Dover (1922) studied the faunal diversity of Chilika Lake.
Afterwards, as part of faunal expeditions, several collections were made
from different parts of Odisha and the results of 58
species were documented in the state fauna series (Srivastava
& Das 1987). Some of the recent
published works from Odisha include: Mitra (2000) who reported 69 species of odonates
throughout Odisha; Sethy
& Siddiqi (2007) reported 16 species from Simlipal Biosphere Reserve; Das et al. (2010, 2011)
reported 31 species from Baripada Forest Division, 26
species from Nandankanan Zoological Park and 58
species within the buffer area of Simlipal Tiger
Reserve, respectively; Nair (2011) reported 110 species throughout Odisha and eastern India and 92 species from Simlipal Biosphere Reserve; Debata
et al. (2013) reported 55 species from Hadgarh
Wildlife Sanctuary; Payra et al. (2014) reported 56
species from Athagarh Forest Division; Sajan & Mohapatra (2014) reported the occurrence of Lesser Blue
Wing (Rhyothemis triangularis
Kirby, 1889) in Odisha from Kotgarh
Wildlife Sanctuary and recently Pandey & Mohapatra (2017) reported 24 species from the Regional
Institute of Education campus, Bhubaneswar.
The vital information on diversity and distribution of odonates, however, is still missing from different parts of
Odisha.
Moreover, the increasing biotic pressure, deforestation and
disappearance of wetlands are becoming major threats to odonates
today. Therefore, documentation of Odonata from different geographic regions and
habitats of Odisha is crucial for establishing
baseline data for future comparison (Nair 2011). In this study, we summarize our findings of odonate fauna of Kuldiha Wildlife
Sanctuary (KWS) in Odisha.
Materials and
Methods
Study Area
The KWS
(Fig. 1) is situated along the tropic zone between 21.333–21.5000N
and 86.500–86.7500E covering an area of 272.75km2 in
northern Odisha region. The landscape is characterized by undulating
terrain and altitude ranges between 169–682 m.
The climate is seasonal, with summer season between March
to June, monsoon (July–October) and winter (November–February). The area receives an annual average rainfall
of 1,460mm from the south-west monsoon and the
temperatures range from 8°C in December to 42°C in June. Vegetation is mostly
mixed deciduous type (Champion & Seth 1968). There are numerous perennial and seasonal
hill streams and water bodies in and around KWS, which are habitats prefered by odonates.
Methods
While
carrying out a biodiversity survey in KWS from November 2012 to October 2013, odonates were observed along hill streams, water bodies and
temporary water logged areas. Whenever a
species was encountered, its close up photographs were taken and later
identified following the keys provided by Subramanian (2009) and Nair (2011);
however, the species with confirmed identification were only taken under
consideration for the checklist. The
taxonomy and nomenclature of all the identified species followed Subramanian
(2014). Based on the encounter rate of
different species, we categorized them into five different groups such as very
common (species encountered during 81–100 % of the survey days), common (61–80
%), occasional (41–60 %), rare (20–41 %) and very rare (less than 20%). To understand the significant difference in
species richness between different months and seasons, a Chi-square test (χ²)
was performed.
Results and
Discussion
During
the survey, 54 species of odonates (Images 1–53)
including 37 species of Anisoptera (dragonflies) and
17 species of Zygoptera (damselflies) were recorded
from KWS (Table 1). In Anisoptera, the family Libellulidae
was well represented by 31 species followed by Aeshnidae
and Gomphidae (3 species each). Likewise, in Zygoptera Coenagrionidae was
dominated by seven species followed by Calopterygidae
and Protoneuridae (3 species each), Chlorocyphidae (2 species), and Platycnemididae
and Lestidae with a single species each (Fig.
2). Our observations on family wise
species richness are more or less similar with the earlier studies from
different protected areas of Odisha (Sethy & Siddiqi 2007; Das et
al. 2011; Nair 2011; Debata et al. 2013) and
elsewhere in India (Varghese et al. 2014; Adarsh et
al. 2015).
During
the study period, a maximum of 51 species were encountered during the months of
April and a minimum of 12 species during the month of January (Fig. 3) and the
observed species richness varied significantly between the months (χ² = 80.49, df = 11, p < 0.05). Similarly during seasonal analysis, a maximum
of 51 species were recorded during summer and a minimum of 16 during monsoon (Fig. 3) and it also varied
significantly between the seasons (χ² = 18.76, df
= 2, p < 0.05). In terms of
species encounter rate, a majority of 16 species were found to be occasional
followed by 15 species as very common, 13 species as common, nine species as
rare and one species as very rare (Table 1; Fig. 4). Species like Ictinogomphus
rapex and Paragomphus
lineatus were more commonly sighted inside the
sanctuary indicating unpolluted water sources and good habitat quality where as
Brachythemis contaminata
was frequently sighted at the peripheral zones indicating presence of polluted
water within anthropogenic habitats (Nair 2011). Referring to IUCN Red List classification, 45
species from our study area are classified under Least Concern and one species
under Data Deficient categories (Table 1).
The rest of the species have not yet been assessed.
Although
KWS represents around 0.17 % of the total geographic area and 3.31 % of the
total protected areas network of Odisha, it
contributes around 49.09 % of the Odonata species
richness of the state and 10.73 % of India.
Yet, the present study gives a preliminary observation on Odonata fauna of KWS as part of multi taxa inventory. Therefore, more detailed and targeted long
term studies on these lesser-known insect fauna will be useful in understanding
their status and monitoring the change over time in the study area.
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Table 1. Checklist of odonates recorded in Kuldiha
Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha during November 2012 to
October 2013
Sub Order / Family / Scientific name |
Common name |
Image number |
Season |
Abundance |
IUCN status |
Sub Order: Anisoptera (Dragonflies) |
|||||
Family: Aeshnidae (Darners) |
|||||
Anax guttatus (Burmeister,
1839) |
Blue-tailed Green Darner |
1 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Gynacantha bayadera Selys, 1891 |
Parakeet Darner |
2 |
S, M |
R |
LC |
Gynacantha dravida Lieftinck, 1960 |
Brown Darner |
3 |
M |
C |
DD |
Family: Gomphidae (Clubtails) |
|||||
Ictinogomphus rapex (Rambur, 1842) |
Common Club Tail |
4 |
S, M, W |
C |
NA |
Macrogomphus annulatulus (Selys, 1854) |
Deccan Bow Tail |
5 |
S, M |
R |
NA |
Paragomphus lineatus (Selys, 1850) |
Common hook Tail |
6 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Family: Libellulidae (Skimmers) |
|||||
Acisoma panorpoides Rambur, 1842 |
Trumpet Tail |
7 |
S, M |
C |
LC |
Brachydiplax sobrina (Rambur,
1842) |
Little Blue Marsh Hawk |
8 |
S, M |
VC |
LC |
Brachythemis contaminata (Fabricius,
1793) |
Ditch Jewel |
9 |
S, M, W |
VC |
LC |
Bradynopyga geminate (Rambur,
1842) |
Granite Ghost |
10 |
S, M, W |
C |
NA |
Crocothemis servilia (Drury, 1770) |
Ruddy Marsh Skimmer |
11 |
S, M, W |
O |
LC |
Diplacodes nebulosa (Fabricius,
1793) |
Black-tipped ground Skimmer |
12 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Diplocodes trivialis (Rambur, 1842) |
Ground Skimmer |
13 |
S, M, W |
VC |
NA |
Lathrecista asiatica (Fabricius,
1798) |
Asiatic Bloodtail |
14 |
S |
R |
LC |
Neurothemis fulvia (Drury, 1773) |
Fulvus Forest Skimmer |
15 |
S, M |
VC |
LC |
Neurothemis intermedia (Rambur, 1842) |
Ruddy Meadow Skimmer |
16 |
S, M, W |
O |
LC |
Neurothemis tullia (Drury, 1773) |
Pied Paddy Skimmer |
17 |
S, M, W |
R |
LC |
Orthetrum glaucaum (Brauer, 1865) |
Blue Marsh Hawk |
18 |
S |
R |
NA |
Orthetrum luzonicum (Brauer, 1868) |
Tricoloured Marsh Hawk |
19 |
S |
R |
LC |
Orthetrum pruinosum (Burmeister,
1839) |
Crimson Tailed Marsh Hawk |
20 |
S, M, W |
VC |
LC |
Orthetrum sabina (Drury, 1770) |
Green Marsh Hawk |
21 |
S, M, W |
VC |
LC |
Orthetrum taeniolatum (Schneider, 1845) |
Taeniolata Marsh Hawk |
22 |
S |
VC |
LC |
Orthetrum triangulare (Selys, 1878) |
Blue tailed forest Hawk |
23 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Palpopleura sexmaculata (Fabricius,
1787) |
Blue Tailed Yellow Skimmer |
24 |
S |
O |
LC |
Pantala flavescens (Fabricius,
1798) |
Wandering Glider |
25 |
S, M, W |
VC |
LC |
Potamarcha congener (Rambur, 1842) |
Yellow-tailed Ashy Skimmer |
26 |
S, M |
C |
LC |
Rhodothemis rufa (Rambur, 1842) |
Rufous Marsh Glider |
27 |
S, M, W |
O |
LC |
Rhyothemis variegata (Linnaeus, 1763) |
Common Picture Wing |
28 |
S, M, W |
VC |
LC |
Tetrathemis platyptera Selys, 1878 |
Pygmy Skimmer |
29 |
S, M |
R |
LC |
Tholymis tillarga (Fabricius,
1798) |
Coral-tailed Cloud Wing |
30 |
S, M |
VR |
LC |
Tramea basilaris (Palisot de Beauvois, 1805) |
Red Marsh Trotter |
31 |
M |
O |
LC |
Tramea limbata (Desjardins, 1832) |
Black Marsh Trotter |
32 |
S, M |
C |
LC |
Trithemis aurora (Burmeister,
1839) |
Crimson Marsh Glider |
33 |
S, M, W |
C |
LC |
Trithemis festiva (Rambur, 1842) |
Black Stream Glider |
34 |
S, M |
VC |
LC |
Trithemis pallidinervis
(Kirby,
1889) |
Long-legged Marsh Glider |
35 |
S, M |
C |
LC |
Urothemis signata (Rambur, 1842) |
Greater Crimson Glider |
36 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Zyxomma petiolatum Rambur, 1842 |
Brown Dusk Hawk |
|
S, M |
VC |
LC |
Sub Order: Zygoptera (Damselflies) |
|||||
Family: Calopterygridae (Glories) |
|||||
Neurobasis chinensis (Linnaeus, 1758) |
Stream Glory |
37 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Vestalis apicais Selys, 1873 |
Black-tipped Forest Glory |
38 |
S, M |
O |
NA |
Vestalis gracilis (Rambur,
1842) |
Clear-winged Forest Glory |
39 |
S |
C |
LC |
Family: Chlorocyphidae (Stream Jewels) |
|||||
Libellago lineata (Burmeister,
1839) |
River Helioder |
40 |
S |
R |
LC |
Rhinocypha bisignata Hagen in Selys,
1853 |
Stream Ruby |
41 |
S, M |
C |
LC |
Family: Coenagrionidae (Marsh Darts) |
|||||
Agriocnemis lecteola Selys, 1877 |
Milky Dartlet |
42 |
S, M |
VC |
NA |
Agriocnemis pygmaea (Rambur,
1842) |
Pygmy Dartlet |
43 |
S, M, W |
VC |
LC |
Amphiallagma parvum (Selys, 1876) |
Azure Dartlet |
44 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Ceriagrion coromandelium (Fabricius,
1798) |
Coromandel Marshdart |
45 |
S, M, W |
VC |
NA |
Ischnura aurora (Brauer,
1865) |
Golden Dartlet |
46 |
S, M, W |
C |
LC |
Pseudagrion decorum (Rambur,
1842) |
Three lined Dart |
47 |
S |
R |
LC |
Pseudagrion rubriceps Selys, 1876 |
Saffron Faced Blue Dart |
48 |
S |
C |
LC |
Family: Lestidae (Spread Wings) |
|||||
Lestes viridulus Rambur, 1842 |
Emerald Striped Spreadwing |
49 |
M |
O |
LC |
Family: Platycnemididae (Bush Darts) |
|||||
Copera vittata Selys, 1863 |
Blue Bush Dart |
50 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Family: Protoneuridae (Bamboo Tails) |
|||||
Caconeura ramburi (Fraser, 1922) |
Coorg Bambootail |
51 |
S, M |
VC |
DD |
Disparoneura quadrimaculata (Rambur,
1842) |
Black-winged Bambootail |
52 |
S, M |
O |
LC |
Prodasineura verticalis (Selys, 1860) |
Black Bambootail |
53 |
S, M |
C |
LC |
S - Summer; M -
Monsoon; W - Winter; VC - Very Common; C - Common; O - Occasional; R - Rare; VR
- Very Rare; LC - Least Concern; DD - Data Deficient;
NT - Near Threatened; NA - Not Assessed