A checklist of dragonflies & damselflies (Insecta: Odonata) of Kerala, India

Abstract

A checklist of odonates of Kerala State is presented in this paper. Scientific binomen, vernacular names in Malayalam, IUCN Red List status, and endemism are also given. A total of 174 species of odonates have been recorded from Kerala till date, 65 of which are endemic to the Western Ghats, and 10 to India. Five species fall under various threatened categories of IUCN. None of the odonates occurring in Kerala is listed in the schedules of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act or the appendices of CITES.

Description ofPhylloneura rupestrissp. nov. (Odonata, Platycnemididae) from the Western Ghats, India with notes on its reproductive behavior

“…It must be noted here that in the description of P. westermanni given by Fraser (1922Fraser ( , 1933, the "apical half" of S7 is mentioned to be azure blue. This, however, is not correct, and as evidenced by photographs published later on (Subramanian 2009, Subramanian 2018, Nair et al 2021, Gopalan et al 2022, Subramanian et al 2022 and specimens collected in this study, only the apical 1/5 th of S7 is azure blue that appears as a thick 'ring'.…”

Description of Phylloneura rupestris sp. n. (Odonata, Platycnemididae) from the Western Ghats, India, with notes on its reproductive behaviour

“…It must be noted here that in the original description of P. westermanni by Fraser (1922Fraser ( , 1933, the "apical half" of S7 is said to be azure blue. This, however, is not correct, and as is evident from photographs published later on (Gopalan et al, 2022;Nair et al, 2021;Subramanian, 2009Subramanian, , 2018Subramanian et al, 2022; all from north of the Palghat Gap) and specimens collected in this study, only the apical fifth of S7 is azure blue. To verify this further, we obtained images of the holotype of P. westermanni from the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA (Fig.…”