Journal of
Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2018 | 10(15):
13037–13038
First report of darkling beetle Blaps
orientalis Solier, 1848 (Coleoptera:
Tenebrionidae) from India
V.D. Hegde 1 , D. Vasanthakumar
2 & S.V. Manthen 3
1,2,3 Western Regional Centre, Zoological Survey
of India, Vidyanagar, Ravet
Road, Akurdi, Pune, Maharashtra 411044, India
1 hegde67@yahoo.co.in (corresponding
author), 2 duraivasanthakumar@gmail.com, 3 shripadmanthen@gmail.com
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4302.10.15.13037-13038
| ZooBank:
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:D07A8377-FAB0-4E5A-B43A-43B1BEF3C040
Editor: Sabu K. Thomas, St. Joseph’s College, Kozhikode,
India. Date of publication: 26 December
2018 (online & print)
Manuscript details: Ms # 4302
| Received 29 May 2018 | Final received 01 November 2018 | Finally accepted 24
November 2018
Citation: Hegde, V.D., D. Vasanthakumar
& S.V. Manthen (2018).
First report of darkling beetle Blaps orientalis Solier, 1848 (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) From India. Journal of Threatened Taxa
10(15): 13037–13038; https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4302.10.15.13037-13038
Copyright: © Hegde et al. 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.
Acknowledgements: We are thankful to Dr. Kailash Chandra, director, Zoological Survey of India
(ZSI), Kolkata, for the facilities provided.
We are indebted to all the staff of the Western Regional Centre, ZSI,
Pune, for their constant encouragement.
Special thanks are due to Dr. Sameer Kumar Pati, ZSI, Pune, for the images.
The
darkling beetles belonging to the tribe Blaptini
Leach, 1815 are large, oblong-elongate beetles, usually measuring more than
20mm in length (Aalbu et al. 2002). This tribe consists of 500 species under 28 genera worldwide (Medvedev
2001, 2007; Medvedev & Merkl
2002), which includes 23 species of six genera from India (unpublished
data). The genus Blaps
Fabricius,
1775 is one of the most diverse genera of darkling beetles in this tribe (Soldati et al. 2017).
The species belonging to this genus are generally flightless and well
adapted to semi-arid and arid conditions owing to several specific behavioural
and morphological adaptations (Condamine et al.
2011). This genus includes more than 250
species worldwide (Löbl et al. 2008), 15 of which
were reported from India. The details
and distribution of all Blaps species earlier
reported from northern and northeastern India are given in Table 1.
The first report of B. orientalis
Solier, 1848 from India after its earlier report from
Bela in Balochistan
(earlier Belutschistan), Pakistan (Schuster 1930), is
provided here. Interestingly, this
collection from Pune in Maharashtra shows the distribution of Blaps species from peninsular India for the first
time.
Systematic Account (As per Bouchard et al. 2005)
Family: Tenebrionidae
Latreille, 1802
Subfamily: Tenebrioninae
Latreille, 1802
Tribe: Blaptini
Leach, 1815
Subtribe: Blaptina
Leach, 1815
Genus: Blaps
Fabricius, 1775
Species: orientalis
Solier, 1848
Material
examined: Ent-1/56A/162, 1 ex., male, 07.vii.1961,
National Chemical Laboratory campus, Pune (18054156 N & 73-081155 E
altitude 594m), Maharashtra, India, coll. S.M. Ketkar.
Diagnostic
characters: Body black, length 38mm, width 17mm, elongate-oval (Image
1A); head widest at eye level; antennae medium size, reaching close to the base
of pronotum when directed backwards and apical antennomeres bearing only simple setiform
sensoria; punctation of head not coarse, moderately
dense.
Pronotum longer than wide, transverse, convex, narrowed backward and arched
towards the base; sparsely and smoothly punctated. Pronotum 1.9 times as wide as head; anterior margin
rounded, lateral margin rounded in anterior half and straight in basal half;
basal margin truncate, closely embracing and overlapping basal aspect of
elytra.
Elytra
elongate (1.9 times as long as wide), with epipleura
narrow throughout its length, broadest around its middle; 2.5 times as long and
1.3 times as wide as pronotum, 2.7 times as wide as
head; elytra 3.9 times as long as mucro; mucro narrow and elongate.
Length of caudal extension at the apex of elytra (mucro)
is 6.26mm. Abdomen wrinkled and presence
of punctures in fourth and fifth abdominal ventrites
between irregular wrinkles. Presence of hair brush between first and second abdominal ventrites (Image 1B).
References
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J.Y. Rasplus & G.J. Kergoat
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Table 1. List of all Blaps
species reported from India
|
Species |
Distribution |
|
Blaps apicecostata Blair, 1922 |
Sikkim |
|
B. breiti Reitter, 1913 |
Himachal Pradesh |
|
B. crassicornis (Fairmaire,
1891) |
Jammu & Kashmir |
|
B. gentilis
Fairmaire, 1887 |
The northern part of India |
|
B. himalyaica Blair, 1923 |
Sikkim |
|
B. indicola Bates, 1879 |
Jammu & Kashmir |
|
B. marginicollis (Fairmaire,
1891) |
Jammu & Kashmir |
|
B. moerens
Allard,
1880 |
Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh |
|
B. nadaii
Medvedev, 2004 |
Uttarakhand |
|
B. nathani Kulzer, 1956 |
Rajasthan |
|
B. perlonga F. Bates, 1879 |
Jammu & Kashmir |
|
B. socia
Seidlitz, 1898 |
Uttarakhand and Sikkim |
|
B. srinagaricus Kaszab, 1975 |
Jammu & Kashmir |
|
B. tristiciae
Bogatchev, 1949 |
Jammu & Kashmir |
|
B. urophora Fairmaire,
1891 |
Jammu & Kashmir |
