Kerala’s damselfly checklist gets a new member

A new damselfly species from the Western Ghats has been added to odonates’ checklist of Kerala.

About the new species:

Name: Anamalai Reed-tail (scientific name: Protosticta anamalaica Sadasivan, Nair and Samuel, 2022).
Anamalai Reed-tail first spotted at Peechi Wildlife Sanctuary.
The tiny insect was first spotted at Ponmudi hills in the Peechi Wildlife Sanctuary that forms part of the Nelliampathies–Anamalais sub-unit of the Munnar landscape.
The genus Protosticta Sels, 1885, consists of slender-built damselflies commonly known as Reed-tails or Shadow-damsels.
They inhabit hill streams in tropical, subtropical and temperate jungles of the Indian subcontinent and south-eastern Asia.
In India, they are distributed in the Western Ghats and north-eastern region towards Myanmar.
The genus was described from Sulawesi in Indonesia.
There are 15 species of Protosticta in India, among which 12 inhabit the Western Ghats.
Kerala has 182 odonates’ species with 69 endemics.