Acrididae of the Punjab

Abstract

The co-operative project to study the taxonomy of acridid grasshopper of the Panjab, was started during January, and ended in December 97. The grasshoppers were collected from most of the districts of the Punjab. The field sites included the agricultural, semideserts, semi mountainous and mountainous areas with the vegetation of crops, grasses, herbs and shrubs. The collected material was sorted out in 58 species of grasshoppers. Of these 20 belong to Locustinae (= Oedipodinae), 10 to Gomphocerinae, 7 to Eyprepocnemidinae, 5 to Acridinae, 4 to Oxyinae, 3 to Cyrtacanthacridinae, 2 each to Euthyminae (=Hemiacridinae), Calopteninae, Truxalinae. 1 each to dericorythinae, tropidopolinae and catantopinae. During the present study 5 species namely, Orchrilidia jagoi, O muzafferi, Sphingonotus abkari, S. hussaini and Aulacobothrus punjabensis are described as new. Eight species are recorded for the first time from this area. These are Dericorys tibialis (Pall) Choroedocus illustris (Walkers), Cataloipus cognatus (walkers), Mioscirtus wagneri rogenhoferi (Saussure), Gelastorhinus semipictus (Walkers), Phlaeoba tenebrosa Walker, Duroniella laticornis (Krauss) and Oxypterna afghana Ramme. The distribution of many of the previously recorded species has been extended to the new localities. The description, synonymy, distributional maps of various species are studied are given. In addition to these simplified taxonomic keys based on the currently available characters for the separation of sub families, genera and species of Acrididae is presented.