Natural history of Platypria (Platypria) hystrix (Fabricius, 1798) on Fabaceae host plants, with notes on other Platypria species in India (Chrysomelidae, Cassidinae, Hispini).

Sachin Ranade,Hemant V Ghate,Caroline S Chaboo,Kaniyarikkal Divakaran Prathapan

doi:10.3897/zookeys.1031.60129

Abstract

The leaf-beetle genus Platypria Guérin-Méneville, 1840 comprises two subgenera and 34 species (Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae: Hispini). Host plants are documented for eight species and indicate mostly perennial species of Fabaceae and Rhamnaceae. Larvae and pupae have been documented for two Platypria species. This paper presents novel natural history data, based on a field study of populations of Platypria (Platypria) hystrix (Fabricius, 1798) on Erythrinastricta Roxb. and Puerariaphaseoloides (Roxb.) Benth. in Kerala, south India and on Erythrinavariegata L., Puerariamontanavar.lobata (Willd.) Maes. & S. Almeida and Mucunapruriens (L) DC in Assam, northeast India. Three new Fabaceae hosts are reported for P. (P.) hystrix. Brief notes and new host records, based on field observations, are also provided for the other three species of Platypria in India - P. (P.) chiroptera Gestro, 1899, P. (P.) echidna Guérin-Méneville, 1840 and P. (P.) erinaceus (Fabricius, 1801). Platypria females slit the leaf to lay a single egg which is covered with secretions that harden as an ootheca, the egg covering in Cassidinaes. l. There are five larval stages, each with the typical 'hispine' mining form and behaviour - a flattened cream-coloured body, chitinised head capsule and claws, and feeding on mesophyll and leaving irregular blotch mines on the host leaves. Pupation occurs in an independent pupal mine and lasts about a week. These observations suggest new potential phylogenetic character hypotheses that can stimulate better data collection on leaf-mining Cassidinae and help resolve evolutionary patterns amongst these basal mining genera.

Highlights

The two subgenera are separated by the elytra margins expanded both at the humeri and posteriorly, with long spines and with “windows” in the nominotypical subgenus
Adults of Indian Platypria are morphologically distinct (Figs 2–5): the body is oblong, but the margins of the pronotum and elytra are expanded into broad rounded lobes and have prominent spinose extensions (Maulik 1919; Uhmann 1954b; Würmli 1975)
We present brief biological notes for the other three Indian Platypria species based on field observations and provide a key to identify these four species in India

Summary

Introduction

The Old World cassidine tribe Hispini Gyllenhal, 1813 (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cassidinae) currently comprises 25 genera and 627 species, including three fossil species (Staines 2015). Ziziphus nummularia (Burm.f.) Wight & Arn. Erythrina stricta Roxb. Maulik 1919, 1937; Beeson 1919; Chatterjee and Bhasin 1936; Gressitt and Kimoto 1963; Gressitt 1950; Kalshoven 1951; Speyer 1954; Mathur and Singh. Ziziphus jujuba Lam. This paper* Beeson 1941 Fletcher 1921; Kalshoven 1957; Nair 1986 Zaka-Ur-Rab 1991; Hua 2002 Beeson 1919; Chatterjee and Bhasin 1936; Speyer 1954; Kalshoven 1957; Zaka-Ur-Rab 1991 Fletcher 1921; Chatterjee and Bhasin 1936; Nair 1986 Kalshoven 1951; 1957 Nair 1986 Chatterjee and Bhasin 1936; Kalshoven 1957 Hua 2002 Beeson 1941; Mathur and Singh 1961 Hua 2002 Chatterjee and Bhasin 1936; Kalshoven 1957 Kalshoven 1957 Gressitt and Kimoto 1963 Chen et al 1986; Liao et al 2014; Liu et al 2019 Chen 1982; Hua 2002 Chen et al 1986; Hua 2002; Liu et al 2019 Uhmann 1954. This paper is the first step in an ongoing process; a detailed comparative morphology study is our goal

Materials and methods

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Conclusions