Abstract
The present study documented 50 species represented by 25 genera, 17 tribes, seven subfamilies belonging to Hybosoridae, Geotrupidae and Scarabaeidae of the superfamily Scarabaeoidea from the northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra. The identified specimens are deposited at the National Zoological Collection, Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Centre, Pune, Maharashtra, India. This is the preliminary study and a first report on the dung beetle fauna of this region covering almost the entire northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra.
Highlights
Beetles belonging to the Scarabaeidae family are commonly called dung beetles
The Laprosticti includes dung feeders while the Pleurosticti is phytophagous. They are cosmopolitan, and their diversity is high in tropical forests (Hanski & Cambefort 1991)
The phytophagous dung beetles feed on many important agricultural crops causing economic losses amounting millions of rupees affecting the GDP of the country
Summary
The surveys were undertaken from 2015–2017 covering 13 districts of Western Ghats of Maharashtra, viz.: Thane, Satara, Sangli, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Nandurbar, Palghar, Sindhudurg, Dhule, Pune, Kolhapur, Nasik, and Ahmednagar. Specimens lying in unidentified collections of the Western Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Pune were studied. The light traps were operated from 19:00 hrs to 24:00 hrs and were installed at the collection sites for two nights in each survey locality. Number of species recorded from the subfamilies from the Western Ghats of Maharashtra. Collected beetles were relaxed, pinned and preserved in the laboratory for further studies. All identified specimens were labeled, duly registered and deposited at National Zoological Collection, Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Centre, Pune, Maharashtra, India (ZSI-WRC). The specimens were identified with the help of available literature, i.e., Arrow (1910, 1917, 1931), Balthasar (1963a,b, 1964), Kuijten(1983), and Krikken (2013). The classification of Scarabaeoidea presented in the present paper is as per Arrow (1910, 1917, 1931), Balthasar (1963a,b, 1964) and Kuijten(1983); modifications have been incorporated as per Lobl & Smetana (2006) and Smith (2006)
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