In June 2025, a study published in Zootaxa, a peer-reviewed scientific journal for animal taxonomists titled, “Rediscovery and description of a new species of Losgna (Cameron 1903): reviving a forgotten ichneumonid genus (Darwin wasps) in India”, highlights the rediscovery of the Losgna genus in Chandigarh, India, after around 60 years.
- The species was named, “Losgna Occidentalis”, as it represents the westernmost occurrence of the genus. Prior records were from tropical forests of eastern India and adjacent regions of Southeast Asia.
- The term ‘Occidentalis’ signifies western extension.
Key Points:
i.The solitary Losgna (wasp) specimen was collected from a windowsill in Chandigarh during winter 2023-24.
ii.The specimen belongs to a parasitic wasp (Ichneumonidae family), a group known for laying eggs inside or on other arthropod hosts.
iii.Prior to the rediscovery, Losgna had not been recorded in India since the 1965 monograph of Heinrich, with no records existing in any Indian Institution since then.
Note: The only existing specimens of any Losgna species are those preserved at the Natural History Museum in London, England.
‘Myotis himalaicus’ a new Bat Species Found in Uttarakhand:
In June 2025, a new bat species, the Himalayan long tailed ‘Myotis’ (Myotis himalaicus), has been discovered in the high-altitude forests of Uttarakhand, particularly in the Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary (Uttarakhand), a major milestone for Himalayan biodiversity research.
- The rare species, which is native to the southern Himalayan slopes, was found in cedar, deodar, and pine forests.
i.The discovery, which was published in Zootaxa, was made by a five-member team led by Uttam Saika of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and Rohit Chakravarthy of Nature Conservation Foundation, as part of a reassessment of bat fauna in the western Himalayas.
ii.The species was described based on the specimen collected in Uttarakhand in 2021 and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, in 1998.
- Csorba had collected the Pakistan specimen but had not identified it as a new species.
iii.It belongs to the Myotis frater complex, a group of morphologically similar species distributed across eastern China, Taiwan, Siberia, Korea, Japan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
About Uttarakhand:
Chief Minister (CM) – Pushkar Singh Dhami
Governor – Gurmit Singh
Capital – Dehradun
National Park (NP) – Jim Corbett NP, Nanda Devi NP
