Two new records of the subfamily Luciolinae Lacordaire, 1857 (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) with a checklist of genus Abscondita from India

New distributional records of fireflies (Coleoptera, Lampyridae, Luciolinae) from two Eastern States of India with notes on their biology and an updated Indian checklist

“… anceyi , Abs. pallescens and Triangulara frontoflava , which were previously reported from India in Ghosh et al (2021) , are not included in this article because the identity of Abs. anceyi could not be confirmed due to lack of male specimens, Abs.…”

“… pallescens is incorrectly reported from India and Tr. frontoflava has been misidentified in Ghosh et al (2021) . The checklist and distributional record of species presented herein has been prepared only on the basis of published articles and some records which were presented earlier in Ghosh et al (2021) are not included here as those were incorrectly reported or mistakenly incorporated from unpublished documents.…”

“…India, though it is recognised as one of the mega-diverse countries of the world, its firefly fauna is very much understudied and has not received much attention for the last 100 years or so. Until now, only 32 Luciolinae species belonging to genera Abscondita Ballantyne Lambkin & Fu, 2013 (three species), Asymmetricata Ballantyne, 2009 (three species), Curtos Motschulsky, 1854 (two species), Inflata Boontop, 2015 (one species), Luciola Laporte, 1833 (15 species), Pteroptyx Olivier, 1902 (one species), Pygoluciola Wittmer, 1939 (four species), Pyrophanes Olivier, 1883 (one species) and Sclerotia Ballantyne, 2016 (two species) have been reported from India ( Gorham 1895 , Gorham 1903 , McDermott 1966 , Ballantyne et al 2013 , Ballantyne et al 2016 , Ballantyne et al 2019 , Ghosh et al 2021 ). Of these, Abs.…”

“… aquatilis have been reported from the State of West Bengal, while only Abs. terminalis has been reported from the State of Odisha until now ( Gorham 1880 , McDermott 1966 , Ballantyne et al 2019 , Ghosh et al 2021 ).…”

Firefly survey: adopting citizen science approach to record the status of flashing beetles

“…However, in India there is not much attention has been given to these beetles till date, which makes it data deficient, although, there are some studies related to the bioluminescence emission of fireflies from Guwahati (Barua et al 2007). A study on the declining population of the genus Abscondita from Barrankula village of Andhra Pradesh (Chatragadda 2020), and a study discussing the records of two new species of subfamily Luciolinae has been found for the first time in India (Ghosh et al 2020). But still, these studies are not enough and there is a lot more scope for evaluating firefly diversity and abundance throughout…”