The Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot: the example of Chalcididae (Hymenoptera) with the description of a new species of Phasgonophora Westwood and a review of the regional species

ABSTRACT

The Western Ghats, vernacularly known as the ‘Sahyadri’ mountain ranges, constitutes a 1600 km chain of hills spread across 189,611 km² and reaching an average elevation of 900–1500 m above mean sea level along the south-western coast of India. Falling well within Meyer’s classification as one of the hottest hotspots, the Western Ghats is home to thousands of endemic flora and associated fauna. Here we validate the biodiversity hotspot status of the Ghats with examples of chalcidid wasps (Hymenoptera: Chalcididae), describing with illustrations a new species of Phasgonophora Westwood (P. rubra Binoy, sp. nov.) from southern Western Ghats. The regional species of Phasgonophora are reviewed along with a phylogenetic analysis based on morphology, exploring the possible congruence of morphological data for the newly collected species. Additionally, diagnoses and illustrations are presented for an unnamed species of Megachalcis Cameron based on a male specimen from the southern Western Ghats. Megachalcis kannapuramensis Sureshan and Girish Kumar is redescribed with illustrations based on a female collected from Aaralam Wildlife Sanctuary, also within the Western Ghats. Distribution maps of Indian species of Phasgonophora Westwood and world species of Megachalcis Cameron are also provided.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:1612501C-8FCA-4A57-A01C-BCC6325121A8

KEYWORDS:

• Phasgonophorinae
• Cratocentrinae
• key
• taxonomy
• Oriental region
• distribution

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to authorities at Department of Zoology, University of Calicut and P. G. & Research Department of Zoology, Malabar Christian College Calicut for providing necessary infrastructure and facilities. We thankfully acknowledge the authorities at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, United States of America, for the digital image of the holotype of Phasgonophora (= Trigonura) samrensis (Narendran) (USNMENT 01570071) and Phasgonophora (= Trigonura) luzonensis (Narendran) (USNMENT 01559243); and the Director, Zoological Survey of India and Officer-in-charge, Western Ghat Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, for providing facilities to study the holotype of M. kannapuramensis. The authors thank Dr K.A. Subramanian, Principal Investigator, and Dr P.M. Sureshan, Co-Principal Investigator, LTEO Programme, Southern Regional Centre Zoological Survey of India, for the loan of the specimen M. kannapuramensis. CB profoundly thanks Dr Gérard Delvare who has always been very kind, supportive, prompt and extremely helpful in explaining queries and providing suggestions. SS acknowledges SERB, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, for financial assistance (File No. EMR/2017/005528). CB thankfully acknowledges UGC for the financial support by means of NFSC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Funding

The authors reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.