Researchers have discovered two new species of very rare wasp-like flower flies such as Monoceromyia flavoscutata and M. nigra from north-eastern India and the Western Ghats.
Key Points:
i.The two species belong to the Syrphidae family and only 12 species of that family have been reported from India previously and the new species have been found after 80 years.
ii.Researchers – H. Sankararaman, a Ph.D scholar from Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, Anooj S.S., an assistant professor of entomology at the Kerala Agricultural University, Padannakkad, and Ximo Mengual, a scientist from Alexander Koenig Zoological Research Museum, Germany.
iii.Published in – The Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology.
iv.About the wasp-like flower flies:
- Monoceromyia flavoscutata was discovered from Thadiyankudisai in Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu and named after its yellow coloured thoracic ends.
- M. nigra was discovered from West Siang of Basar district of Arunachal Pradesh and named based on the black-coloured thorax.
–Two New Plant Species Discovered in the Western Ghats
Researchers from SNM College Maliankara, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, and the Payyanur College have discovered two new plant species such as Fimbristylis sunilii and Neanotis prabhuii from Western Ghats regions of Thiruvananthapuram (Ponmudi hills), and Wayanad (Chembra Peak), Kerala.
- The findings by the research teams have been detailed in the plant taxonomy journal Phytotaxa.
About the Plant species:
i.Fimbristylis sunilii is a perennial plant of the Cyperaceae family, and was named after plant taxonomist C.N. Sunil, retired professor and research guide of Botany, SNM College.
- It has been provisionally assessed as data deficient (DD) under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List categories
ii.Neanotis prabhuii is a prostrate perennial herb belonging to the family Rubiaceae and was named after K.M. Prabhukumar, Senior Scientist at CSIR-NBRI, Lucknow.
- It also has been categorised as DD in the absence of any detailed observations and data on populations.
Recent Related News:
The Researches from Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS); Center for Ecological Sciences (CES); Indian Institute of Science; and the National Center for Biological Science (NCBS) , Bengaluru have discovered 12 new species of Geckos from the Western Ghats and have also rediscovered from species after over 100 years.
