Additional records of Tettigoniidae from Arunachal Pradesh, India

Checklist of Tettigoniidae (Orthoptera: Ensifera) from India

This paper presents the known Indian Tettigoniidae (Orthoptera) as an updated checklist that includes currently valid names for the fauna with their distribution data. A total of 219 species, a few with subspecies, and 08 subfamilies were recorded to occur in India.

First record and description of female Onomarchus leuconotus (Serville, 1838) (Insect: Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) from peninsular India

The members of family Tettigoniidae, commonly called katydids, generally exhibit mimicry and camouflage with shapes and colours similar to leaves. The genus Onomarchus Stal is mainly distributed in temperate and tropical Asia, and was earlier reported from Assam and West Bengal in India. The species Onomarchus leuconotus (Serville, 1838) is reported here for the first time in peninsular India from the Western Ghats (Chandoli National Park, Kolhapur, Maharashtra). This record extends the known geographical range of this species by about 1630 km. As its holotype is not described from India, the female of O. leuconotus is described here via detailed diagnostic characters, colour photographs and illustrations. 

Ecological Constraints on Sexual Selection in a Human-Modified Landscape

Anthropogenic activities are changing the sensory landscape, interfering with transmission and reception of sexual signals. These changes are leading to alterations in mating behaviour with consequences to fitness. In systems where mate-finding involves long-distance signalling by one sex and approach by the other sex, the spatial distribution of signallers can have implications for male and female fitness. Spatial distribution of signallers is typically determined by an interplay of multiple factors, both ecological and evolutionary, including male competition, female choice and resources, such as calling and oviposition sites. We investigated the possible influence of resource distribution (signalling sites) on the strength and direction of sexual selection acting on false-leaf katydid Onomarchus uninotatus males, signalling in a human-modified landscape in the Western Ghats, India, a biodiversity hotspot. The landscape has changed from evergreen forests to plantations owing to human settlements. We first determined the spatial distribution of calling males and of available calling sites, which are trees of the genus Artocarpus, in the landscape. Using the information on male spacing, call transmission and hearing thresholds, the perceptual spaces of male signals were computed to understand the acoustic environment of calling males and females. It was found that both calling males and females could hear calls of males from neighbouring trees with a probability of 0.76 and 0.59, respectively. Although calling males were found to be spaced apart more than predicted by chance, significant overlap was seen in their acoustic ranges. Clustering of males enables females to easily sample multiple males, facilitating mate choice, but is detrimental to males as it increases competition for females. Using simulations, we determined the optimal spatial distributions of O. uninotatus males for female choice, and for reduction of male competition, given the signalling site distribution. The observed distribution of signallers was then compared with the hypothetical optimal distributions to examine the drivers of signaller spacing. Spacing of calling males in the field was found to be not optimal for either males or females. Resource distribution was found to limit the effectiveness of sexual selection drivers in pushing male spacing toward fitness optima of males or females.

Some new records of katydids (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) from Uttar Pradesh, India

In the present investigation intensive field surveys were undertaken to explore katydids of Uttar Pradesh.  Five species of katydids from four genera, namely, Letana cf. megastridula Ingrisch, 1990, Parasanaa donovani (Donovan, 1834), Sathrophyllia femorata (Fabricius, 1787), S. rugosa (Linnaeus, 1758), and Acanthoprion suspectum (Brunner 1895) were recorded for the first time from Uttar Pradesh, India.