Dragonflies and Damselflies (Odonata: Insecta) of Tropical
Forest Research Institute, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, central India
Ashish D. Tiple 1, Sanjay Paunikar2 & S.S. Talmale 3
1,2 Forest Entomology Division, Tropical Forest Research
Institute, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh 482021, India
1Deparmentof Zoology, Vidyabharati college Seloo, Wardha, Maharashtra 442104, India.
3Zoological Survey of India, Vijay
Nagar, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh 482002, India
Email: 1 ashishdtiple@yahoo.co.in (correspondingauthor), 2 sdpaunikar@gmail.com, 3 s_talmale@yahoo.co.in
Date of publication (online): 26
April 2012
Date of publication (print): 26
April 2012
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) |
0974-7893 (print)
Editor: K.A.
Subramanian
Manuscript
details:
Ms # o2657
Received 23 December 2010
Final received 18 February 2012
Finally accepted 05 March 2012
Citation: Tiple
A.D., S. Paunikar & S.S. Talmale (2012). Dragonflies and Damselflies
(Odonata: Insecta) of Tropical Forest Research Institute, Jabalpur, Madhya
Pradesh, central India. Journal
of Threatened Taxa 4(4): 2529–2533.
Copyright: © Ashish
D. Tiple, Sanjay Paunikar & S.S. Talmale 2012. Creative Commons Attribution
3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any
medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing
adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.
Acknowledgement:The
authors are thankful to the Dr. K. A. Subramanian, Zoological Survey of India,
Pune for critical identification of odonates and valuable suggestion.
For images, table -- click
here
The Tropical Forest Research Institute (TFRI), Jabalpur, is one
of the nine institutes under the Indian Council of Forestry Research &
Education. It lies on the bank of
the Gour River on Mandla Road (79059’23.500E
& 21008’54.300N) about 10km south east of
Jabalpur. The campus is spread
over an area of 1.09km2 amidst picturesque surroundings. The area enjoys a semi-arid type of climate with a mean
annual precipitation of 1358mm (Image 1).
The campus is surrounded by agricultural fields with rural
inhabitation. The
water reservoir and the vegetation planted around the institute have created a
very good habitat and source of attraction for many faunal species like
insects, reptiles, birds and mammals.
The damselflies (Zygoptera) and dragonflies (Anisoptera) are
amphibiotic insects, which belong to the order Odonata. They spend a major part of their life
cycle in fresh water ecosystem. The adults are generally predacious insects, while the larvae are
carnivorus and voracious. Even though the species are usually highly specific
to a habitat, some have adapted to urbanization and use man-made water bodies. Being primarily aquatic, their life
history is closely linked to specific aquatic habitats (Andrew et al. 2009).
Dragonflies mostly
occur in the vicinity of different freshwater habitats like rivers, streams,
marshes, lakes and even small pools and rice fields. Odonates are good indicators of environmental changes as
they are sensitive to changes in the habitats, atmospheric temperature and the
weather conditions. They are
biocontrol agents, many species of odonates inhabiting agro ecosystems play a
crucial role controlling pest populations (Tiple et al. 2008).
Fraser (1933–1936) published three volumes on Odonata in
the ‘Fauna of British India’ including 536 species and subspecies of Odonata
from India with many species from Madhya Pradesh (MP) and from Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. After Fraser’s work, some additions were made to MP, India
by Bhasin (1953), Kumar & Prasad (1978) and Mitra (1988) reported 39
species of Odonata from central India. Mitra (1995) while working on Odonata of Indravati Tiger Reserve added
nine more species bringing the number of species to 48. Prasad & Varshney (1995) published
a checklist of the Indian odonates, including updated data on larval studies of
all the known species. Srivastava
& Babu (1997) studied the damselflies of Sagar.
Mishra (2007) studied the Odonata of Madhya
Pradesh and described a total of 70 species belonging to 40 genera and nine
families distributed in different localities. But no published checklist of different species of Odonata
of TFRI campus is known hence, the present work was initiated.
Materials and Methods: The odonates were collected from the Gour River, gardens,
temporary and permanent flowing or still water bodies of TFRI campus. A biweekly survey was undertaken from
2009–2010 during the monsoon and post monsoon (July–August)
periods. The adult specimens were
identified with the help of identification keys provided by Fraser (1933, 1934,
1936), Mitra (2006), Subramanian (2005), Andrew et
al. (2009), and Subramanian (2009). The odonates were categorized on the basis of their abundance in TFRI
campus VC - very common (> 100 sightings), C - common (50–100
sightings), R - rare (2–15 sightings), VR - very rare (< 2 sightings)
(Tiple et al. 2008).
Results and Discussion: A total of 48 species of odonates belonging to 32 genera of two
suborders and nine families viz., Coenagrionidae, Protoneuridae,
Platycnemididae, Lestidae, Chlorocyphidae, Aeshnidae, Gomphidae, Libellulidae and Macromiidae were recorded Among them, eight previously unrecorded species were
included in the check list of Madhya Pradesh. Of the total 48 species 15 were very common, 15 were common,
16 rare and two very rare in occurrence.
Most odonates recorded belong to the Libellulidae (20 species)
with one new record (i.e., Orthetrumluzonicum) (Image 2). Coenagrionidae (13) species were
recorded with one new record (Agriocnemisfemina) (Image 3). The family Gomphidae includes three species with one new record (i. e. Macrogomphus annulatus)
(Image 4). Aeshnidae (four)
species were recorded with two new records (i.e., Anax immaculifrons (Image 5), Hemianax ephippiger (Image
6)). Only two species were
recorded from the Protoneuridae, Lestidae. Family Platycnemididae, Chlorocyphidae and Macromiidae (with
one new record, Epophthalmiavittata Image 7) recorded one species respectively from Madhya
Pradesh. The list of
odonates along with their scientific names and their status is provided in
Table 1.
So far, the occurrences of 70 species of odonates were reported
under 40 genera and nine families from Madhya Pradesh (Mishra 2007). The present observation indicates good
diversity of Odonata in the Tropical Forest Research Institute by having about
70% of the reported species from Madhya Pradesh.
India harbors 463 species/subspecies of Odonata belonging to 140
genera under 19 families (Subramanian 2009). Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states present 70 species of
the entire Odonata diversity of India, which has now increased from
70–76 species.
The TFRI campus seems to have a rich odonate diversity of 48
species in a small area (1.09km2), probably due to its establishment
on the bank of the river Gaur along with the dense shrub and tree vegetation,
providing a major attraction to the Odonata species. The observations recorded in the present study may
prove valuable as a reference for assessing the changes due to the
environmental conditions in the locality, in future. The findings of
the present study underline the importance of institutional estates in
providing preferred abodes for dragonfly and damselfly. Continuous exploration in TFRI campus
region could add many more new species from the region.
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