Deepa Jaiswal

We describe two new species of the genus Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820, namely Hemidactylus cairnicola sp. nov. and H. koyaorum sp. nov., from Nalgonda and Warangal districts of Telangana State, India, respectively, based on an integrative assessment of external morphology and mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 (ND2) gene sequences. Both taxa are assigned to the Hemidactylus brookii group and belong to the murrayi clade, within which they show closest affinity to H. treutleri Mahony, 2009. Mitochondrial sequence divergence reveals substantial genetic differentiation from H. treutleri, with the species of Nalgonda exhibiting an uncorrected pairwise distance of 9.5–14.5%, and the species of Warangal differing by 7.0–13.5%. The two newly described species are also genetically distinct from each other, showing an uncorrected p-distance of 9.5–10.0%. These levels of divergence, in conjunction with consistent morphological differences, support the recognition of both taxa as distinct species.

The aquatic scavenger beetle genus Amphiops Erichson, is characterised by its rounded and convex, semiglobular body; antennae eight-segmented; scutellum elongate, visible; pronotum punctuate; and e...

The study documents 53 species of aquatic coleoptera belonging to 20 genera and 5 families (Dytiscidae, Gyrinidae, Haliplidae, Hydrophilidae and Noteridae) from Papikonda National Park, Andhra Pradesh, India for the first time. Hydromorpha spinicollis nordica Mouchamps, 1959, Lacconectus fulvescens Motschulsky, 1855 and Peschetius nilssoni (Sheth, Ghate, Dahanukar and Hájek, 2021) are recorded for the first time from the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Among the reported 53 species, five species (Cybister rugulosus (Redtenbacher, 1844), L. regimbarti Brancucci, 1986, P. nilssoni, P. toxophorus Guignot, 1942 and Gyrinus convexiusculus Macleay, 1871) have been noted as endemic to India. The most common and widespread species in the national park are Hydroglyphus flammulatus (Sharp, 1882), Hydaticus discindens Walker, 1858 and Sternolophus acutipenis (Nasserzadeh and Komarek, 2017). The study showed that temporary pools are holding more species than permanent water bodies. The zoogeographical distribution of all the species is also given.

We describe a new species of Riopa from the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, India. The new species is diagnosed by the following suite of characters: lower eyelid with a semi-transparent disk, 108–109 paravertebral scale rows, 8 or 9 lamellae on the 4th toe, dorsum with 16 distinct longitudinal lines, five fingers and five toes, preanal scales not enlarged, and ear opening covered by scales. Our mitochondrial molecular data supports the placement of the species in the genus Riopa and the new species is 4.1–9.2 % divergent from genetically sampled congeners. This study adds in understanding the cryptic diversity of lizard fauna in the Eastern Ghats in peninsular India. Based on our findings we provide a dichotomous key to the genus Riopa.

Pseudophilautus regius is a bush frog originally described from the dry zones of Sri Lanka. In the present study, P. regius is being reported from the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India as a new record for the country. The Indian population of P. regius being polytypic, identity confirmation was aided by genetic data. Earlier data for the genus Pseudophilautus indicated that three endemic species were known from the Western Ghats, India and 75 endemic species occurred in Sri Lanka. This report forms the first report of a bush frog exhibiting distribution in both India and Sri Lanka across the saltwater barrier of the Palk Strait in the Indian ocean. Discussions are made regarding other lineages which have distributions across both India and Sri Lanka.

The present investigation was carried out to study the fauna of aquatic beetles of Koundinya wildlife sanctuary (India). A total of forty two species belonging to four families was recorded. The highest number of species was found in the family Dytiscidae followed by Hydrophilidae, Gyrinidae and Noteridae. All the species are ...

The present study is on the morphology and molecular data of the genus Dineutus MacLeay, were collected from the Eastern Ghats mountains in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu states located in the eastern Ghats of India. The morphological identification was based on elytral spines, setation on paramere and structure ...