Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26
November 2019 | 11(14): 14906–14907
A new distribution record of
the gall midge Octodiplosis bispina Sharma (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) from the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, India
Duraikannu Vasanthakumar
1, Radheshyam Murlidhar
Sharma 2 & Palanisamy Senthilkumar
3
1,2 Zoological
Survey of India, Western Regional Centre, Akurdi,
Pune, Maharashtra 411044, India.
3 Department of
Genetic Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, Tamilnadu 603203,
India.
1 duraivasanthakumar@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 rmsharma53@yahoo.in, 3 mpsenthilkumar@gmail.com
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4317.11.14.14906-14907
Editor: Anonymity requested. Date
of publication: 26 November 2019 (online & print)
Manuscript details: #4317 | Received 06 June 2018 | Final received 05 July 2019 | Finally
accepted 19 October 2019
Citation: Vasanthakumar, D., R.M. Sharma & P. Senthilkumar (2019). A new
distribution record of the gall midge Octodiplosis
bispina Sharma (Diptera:
Cecidomyiidae) from the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu,
India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(14): 14906–14907. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4317.11.14.14906-14907
Copyright: © Vasanthakumar et al. 2019. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction,
and distribution of this article in any medium by adequate credit to the
author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The author declares no competing
interests.
Acknowledgements: Authors are grateful to the
Director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata for providing the necessary
facilities. Thanks are also due to the
staff of the Western Regional Centre, ZSI, Pune, for their constant encouragement.
Gall midges are small, inconspicuous flies, but they
may be very important in both forest and agro
ecosystems. The body of the adult gall midges generally varies from 0.5–3 mm in
length but occasionally may be as long as 8mm or less than 0.5mm. They usually have long antennae. The wing veins are reduced in number with
only three or four veins normally present.
Tibial spurs are absent. The larvae
vary somewhat in their habits but most species are either phytophagous,
producing galls on various plants, mycophagous,
feeding on fungi, or zoophagous, feeding on invertebrates, especially insects (Skuhrava et al. 1984).
While identifying the collections of gall midges of Tamil Nadu State, we
came across a gall midge species identified as Octodiplosis
bispina Sharma, 1987. Perusal of published works on the gall midges
of Tamil Nadu and the Western Ghats (Sharma 2009) revealed that this species
has not been reported from these areas earlier and hence the present collection
forms a new distribution records (Figure 1).
The adults were dissected and mounted on microscope slides in Canada
balsam and the specimens were deposited in the National Zoological Collection
of WRC, Zoological Survey of India, Entomology Section, Pune, India.
Material examined: Ent 10/179, 2 males, 17.i.2018,
collected at light, near Maruthamalai, Coimbatore,
Tamil Nadu, coll. D. Vasanthakumar. Ent 10/214, 2 males, 23.v.2018, collected at
light, near Courtallam,
Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, coll. P. Senthilkumar.
Distribution: Aurangabad (Maharashtra), the Andaman
Islands, and Tamil Nadu (this study).
Diagnostic Characters: Palpi quadriarticulate. Antenna
with 2+12 segments, the flagellate antennal segments binodose
in male (Image 1A), with long apical stems, enlargements with two whorls of
long setae, one on each enlargement, with three whorls of regular circumfila, one on basal and two on apical enlargements;
middle whorl shortest; wing, narrow, three times as long as broad (Image 1B);
vein R1 joining costa a little before the basal ¼ of the wing; vein Rs present, vein R5 reaching wing margin well beyond the
apex and interrupting costa at its union, vein Cu forked. Claw, simple on all legs, curved, empodium rudimentary.
Genitalia (Image 1C), Gonocoxite, with a
median bilobed obtuse lobe, length 2.33 x its maximum thickness; gonostylus slender, curved, gradually tapering towards the
tip, ending in tooth. Dorsal plate
deeply bilobed, lobes triangular, rounded apically, narrowed medially, aedeagus
slender, narrowed medially with a pair of strong, lateral upwardly or
downwardly directed spines beyond middle, tip capitate (Sharma 1987).
For
figure & image – click here
References
Skuhrava, M., V. Skuhravy & J.W.
Brewer (1984). Biology of Gall midges, pp.
169–222. In: Ananthakrishnan, T.N. (ed.). Biology
of Gall Insects. Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. India, 362pp.
Sharma, R.M. (1987). On a new species of genus Octodiplosis
Giard (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) from India. Geobios new reports 6:
2–4.
Sharma, R.M.
(2009). Insecta:
Diptera: Cecidomyiidae.
Zoological Survey of India, Fauna of Tamil Nadu, State Fauna Series 17:
111–113.