Taxonomic study of the tribe Onitini Laporte, 1840 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) from Northern Pakistan

Abstract

We provide occurrence records of the members of dung beetle's tribe Onitini from the northern parts of Pakistan, including Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and Islamabad Capital Territory. This study is based on extensive field sampling from different ecological biomes including Alpine Meadows, the Sub-Alpine Zone, Mountain Temperate Forest, and Subtropical Deciduous Forest. As a result, we report six species under two genera of tribe Onitini: Onitis falcatus, O. lama, O. philemon, O. subopacus, O. virens, and Cheironitis arrowi. The genus Cheironitis is recorded for the first time from northern parts of Pakistan. We provide photographs of the dorsal and ventral habitus, diagnosis, distribution maps and identification keys to known genera and species in the tribe Onitini from Pakistan.

A checklist of the dung beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae) deposited at Pakistan Museum of Natural History

“…Currently, our understanding of the dung beetle fauna of Pakistan is still incomplete, and the species diversity across different regions remains inadequately studied. Unfortunately, the northern areas (Gilgit-Baltistan) and southwestern parts (Balochistan) of Pakistan have received less attention in the past (Abbas et al, 2015(Abbas et al, , 2023, resulting in a low diversity of dung beetle species recorded from these regions. However, we anticipate that these areas hold the potential to host a significant number of species because these areas are highly influenced by the Oriental and Palaearctic fauna in the north and Afrotropical fauna in the southwestern parts of Pakistan (Hassan et al, 2019).…”

“…The specimens were examined with a Kyowa Optical Microscope (Model SDZ-P) and species were identified based on the following available published literature: Arrow (1931), Balthasar (1963aBalthasar ( , 1963b, Löbl & Smetana (2006), Montreuil (2011), Abbas et al (2015Abbas et al ( , 2023, Génier & Moretto (2017), Bui et al (2018), Edmonds (2018), andMinetti (2022). After examining 605 specimens of dung beetles, the digital photographs along with the following data are given for all available species housed at PMNH: country name, locality, number of examined specimens, and complete label data for 26 species in 12 genera and seven tribes: Coprini (nine species ≈35%), Onthophagini (six species ≈23%), Onitini (six species ≈23%), Gymnopleurini (two species ≈8%), Oniticellini, Scarabaeini, and Sisyphini each represented by a single species.…”

“…The first study on scarabid beetles of this region was conducted by Gilbert Arrow who published primitive lists of Lamellicornia in 1917Lamellicornia in , 1925Lamellicornia in and 1931. So far, several faunal studies were conducted on the dung beetles of Pakistan including, Abdullah & Roohi (1968, 1969, Hashmi & Tashfeen (1992), Keith (2001Keith ( , 2002, Bai et al (2006), Löbl & Smetana (2006), Kabakov (2006), Ahrens (2007), Keith (2007), Kabakov (2008), Zídek & Pokorný (2008), Drumont et al (2009), Keith (2010), Keith & Sabatinelli (2010), Ratcliff & Ahmed (2010), Montreuil (2011), Siddiqui & Kamaluddin (2011), Keith & Saltin (2012), Ahmed et al (2014aAhmed et al ( , 2014b, Siddiqui et al (2014), Abbas et al (2015), Ali et al (2015), Noureen et al (2015aNoureen et al ( , 2015b, Sabatinelli & Ahrens (2015), Ziani et al (2015), Zubair & Ratcliffe (2015), Ahrens & Fabrizi (2016), Génier & Moretto (2017), Ghazanfar et al (2017), Fazal et al (2018), Sreedevi et al (2018), Montreuil et al (2019, Ziani et al (2019),…”

Observing Pollinator Attraction to Winter Annual Flowering Plants in an Urban Ecosystem

“…Several studies have been conducted to explore major insect fauna from Pakistan (Hussain and Umar, 2021;Hussain et al, 2023;Ramzan et al, 2021;Asghar et al, 2022;Maryam et al, 2020;Ane and Hussain, 2016). Major insect taxa assessed from different habitats and climatic zones during last two decades include butterflies (Roberts, 2001;Khan et al, 2014Khan et al, , 2015Khan et al, , 2021Abbas et al, 2002;Bibi et al, 2022;Yu-Feng et al, 2020;Mangi et al, 2023), dung beetles (Siddiqui et al, 2014;Noureen et al, 2015b;Ghazanfar et al, 2017;Nasir et al, 2016;Hussain et al, 2020Hussain et al, , 2022aAbbas et al, 2015;Ali et al, 2015;Noureen et al, 2015aNoureen et al, , 2021, coccinellid beetles (Hussain et al, 2018(Hussain et al, , 2022bAhmed et al, 2017), grasshoppers (Hussain et al, 2017;Ali and Panhwar, 2017), bees and wasps (Bashir et al, 2019;Hussain et al, 2010Hussain et al, , 2012Bashir et al, 2023), and ground beetles (Rafi et al, 2017;Rahim et al, 2013b;Azadbakhsh and Rafi, 2017;Bibi and Rehman, 2020;Hussain et al, 2022c). Coleoptera play an important role in agroecosystems due to their high diversity, abundance,…”