Moths (Insecta: Lepidoptera) of Delhi, India: An illustrated checklist based on museum specimens and surveys.

J Komal,Sohail Madan,Yash Sondhi,P R Shashank,Sanjay Sondhi,Naresh M Meshram,S S Anooj

doi:10.3897/bdj.9.e73997

Abstract

BackgroundThere have been several recent checklists, books and publications about Indian moths; however, much of this work has focused on biodiversity hotspots such as North-east India, Western Ghats and Western Himalayas. There is a lack of published literature on urban centres in India, despite the increased need to monitor insects at sites with high levels of human disturbance. In this study, we examine the moths of Delhi, the national capital region of India, one of the fastest growing mega-metropolitan cities. We present a comprehensive checklist of 338 moths species using 8 years of light trapping data (2012-2020) and examining about 2000 specimens from historical collections at the National Pusa Collection of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi (NPC-IARI) spanning over 100 years (1907-2020). The checklist comprises moths from 32 families spanning 14 superfamilies with Noctuoidea (48.5%) and Pyraloidea (20.4%) being the the two most dominant superfamilies. We provide links to images of live individuals and pinned specimens for all moths and provide detailed distribution records and an updated taxonomic treatment.New informationThis is the first comprehensive annotated checklist of the moths of Delhi. The present study adds 234 species to the biodiversity of moths from Delhi that were not reported previously, along with illustrations for 195 species.

Highlights

Lepidoptera Linnaeus, 1758 which includes butterflies and moths, is one of the largest insect orders consisting of 45 super families and having 157,424 species described (Van Nieukerken et al 2011)
Much of the work on Indian moth fauna was done pre-independence, including Hampson (1891), Hampson (1892), Hampson (1894), Hampson (1895), Hampson (1896), Fletcher (1920), Fletcher (1932), Fletcher (1933), Moore (1880), Moore (1882), Moore (1884), Bell and Scott (1937) and while they are extensive contributions to Indian moth fauna, these works are in need of a systematic update with additional modern surveys and current taxonomy
We focus on the moth fauna of Delhi, the National capital territory of India, one of the largest growing metropolitan centres in the world with an estimated population of 23 million (MPD 2021)

Summary

Background

There have been several recent checklists, books and publications about Indian moths; much of this work has focused on biodiversity hotspots such as North-east India, Western Ghats and Western Himalayas. We examine the moths of Delhi, the national capital region of India, one of the fastest growing mega-metropolitan cities. We present a comprehensive checklist of 338 moths species using 8 years of light trapping data (2012-2020) and examining about 2000 specimens from historical collections at the National Pusa Collection of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi (NPCIARI) spanning over 100 years (1907-2020). We provide links to images of live individuals and pinned specimens for all moths and provide detailed distribution records and an updated taxonomic treatment. This is the first comprehensive annotated checklist of the moths of Delhi. The present study adds 234 species to the biodiversity of moths from Delhi that were not reported previously, along with illustrations for 195 species

Introduction

Materials and methods

Findings

Discussion