Sankarsan Roy

Taxonomy of Soldier Flies (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) of Sunderban Biosphere Reserve, India

The present communication deals with recording of nine species of soldier flies (Insecta: Diptera: Stratiomyidae) from Sunderban Biosphere Reserve of India, of which, Tinda indica (Walker, 1851), Hermetia illucens (Linnaeus, 1758), Odontomyia kashmirensis Brunetti, 1920, Odontomyia viridana (Wiedemann, 1824), Prosopochrysa vitripennis (Doleschall, 1856) are being reported for the first time from this unique and globally acclaimed mangrove ecosystem. Odontomyia kashmirensis Brunetti, 1920 is reported for the first time from the state of West Bengal. A key to identify these species is provided with taxonomic notes.

A Current Status on Diversity and Distribution of Black Flies (Insecta: Diptera:Simuliidae) in India

Historyoftaxonomicresearch: Simuliidae, or black f lies, under the infra-order Culicomorpha of the suborder Nematocera are a group of dipteran flies (Pape , 2011) which are well known for being an annoyance to the man and animals of different regions. This group of insects are belonged to the aquatic insect communities and also play a role as detrivores in lotic ecosystems (Cummins, 1987). These flies are ideal organisms to understand species richness of aquatic insects. A total of 2219 species under 26 genera of Simuliidae have been reported from the World (Adler & Crosskey, 2016). Mitra & Sharma (2010) published a checklistof Indiansimuliid where they mentioned a listof 67 species, among which 11 species were mentioned up to genus level. Till date, there is no consolidated list of Simuliidae reported from India. Present communication isacompilationof work based on recentclassif icationand valid nomenclature followed after Systema Dipterorum (Pape and Thomson, 2013) and World Catalogue of Simuliidae (Adler & Crosskey, 2016) and others available literature along with its distribution in states and union territories of India. Altogether, 69 species belonging to eight subgenera and a single genus reported so far, which includesonlyvalid speciesreported from India (Table 1).

Insect Faunal Diversity of the Sunderban Biosphere Reserve, West Bengal, India

Present paper confirms the report of 591 species, under 404 genera of 100 families belonging to 13 orders of insects from the Indian parts of Sunderbans. In terms of species richness, the order Lepidoptera is the most speciose (163 species), followed by Diptera (133 species), Hyemnoptera (96 species), Coleoptera (81 species), Orthoptera (19 species), Dermaptera (8 species), Isoptera (7 species), Neuroptera (6 species), Thysanoptera (2species), Blattodea (2species) and Phthiraptera (2 species).