Thiruvananthapuram: Three members of the research team from India and Germany, including a city-based researcher has collaborated to find two new species that are very rare like flies from northeast India and Western Ghats.
The new species is explained’Monoceromyia flavoskutata ‘and’m.
Nigra ‘belongs to the Syrphidae family.
This finding has been published in the Journal of the Asia-Pacific Entomology.
Genus members are very rare with only 12 species reported from India before.
The discovery of new species in this rare genus occurred in India after 80 years.
They were found by H Sankaraman, a PhD scholar from Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, Anooj SS, an assistant professor of Kerala Agricultural University, and Ximo Melia, a scientist from the Koenig Alexander Zoolog Research Museum, Germany Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh as part of part of study.
In addition to two new species the researchers have revised the genus and re-illustrates seven species in the genus.
They also found that two species ‘monoceromyia multipata’ and’m.
The previous polisoid was explained to be identical.
New species.
Flavoskutata was found from thadiyankudisai in the Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu, named after the tip of the yellow and can be distinguished from a species that was very similar to the coloring coloring and other vein characters.
NIGRA ‘was found from the Western noon, the Arunachal Pradesh Basar district was different from the near species based on thoracic coloring, stomach and facial faces and wing characters, named as nigra based on black colored thoracles.
This genus is recognized by their facial projections from where their antennas appear, the stomach of the petiolation and coloring that mimic the waswasps to escape from predators.
Found from Western Ghats was observed to show strange habits in tree sap.
The mature genus stage is reported to show interesting habitat preferences such as SAP running and rotting tree holes, bee colonies and plants filled with bamboo and agave.
Discovery of rare species with special habitat preferences highlight the wealth of Western Ghats and North East India and the need for natural vegetation conservation, the researchers said.