Kerala’s damselfly checklist gets a new member
- Category
Environment
- Published
5th Aug, 2022
-
Context
A new damselfly species from the Western Ghats has been added to odonates’ checklist of Kerala.
About
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.
