Two new species of apterous endemic ground beetle genus Omphra Dejean (Carabidae: Anthiinae: Helluoniini) from India

ABSTRACT

Two new species of apterous endemic ground beetle Omphra Dejean, 1825, O. balli sp. nov. from the semi-arid region in Central India and O. erwini sp. nov. from the semi-arid region in Northwestern India are described. Modified key to the species is given. The nine known species of the genus Omphra are divided into three groups (Pilosa group, Complanata group and Atrata group) based on the morphological traits and biogeographical distribution.

Omphra ballihttp://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:DDD549F3-C159-4C02-BCE4-EE7D459487CC

Omphra erwinihttp://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:B92BDB94-6E50-4429-83FC-611BA6C8C70F

KEYWORDS:

• Helluonini
• Omphra balli
• Omphra erwini
• new species
• semi-arid regions
• Omphra groups

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Govt. of India (File No. CRG/2018/000228 Dated 22.03.2019) for the financial assistance and to the FIST Program of Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India (SR/FST/College-095/2012 Dated 15.11.2012) for the lab facilities provided. We are grateful to Dr. Kailash Chandra (Director, Zoological Survey of India) for access to the national insect collections; Dr. Sanjeev Kumar (Officer in Charge, ZSI-DRC, Jodhpur) and Dr. P.S. Bhatnagar (Officer in Charge, ZSI-WRC, Pune) for the logistic support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board [File No. CRG/2018/000228 Dated 22.03.2019].