Submitted date: 7 September 2022 Accepted date: 29 March 2023 Published date: 12 May 2023 Pp. 30–32, pls. 18–19
Distribution and natural history notes on the herpetofauna of Ladakh, India
D.A. Patel*, C. Ramesh, S. Ghosal & P. Raina *Corresponding author. E-mail: dmp8266@gmail.com
The Himalayas is the highest and youngest mountain range in the world. It provides unique habitat characteristics and is home to a unique assemblage of flora and fauna. There is very little information on the herpetofauna and their ecology in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh. Ladakh, located in an area of rain shadow, is characterized by extreme weather, climate, and terrain and relatively lower species richness. The region’s elevation ranges from 2,700 m to over 7,000 m a.s.l. and the annual precipitation is ~90–110 mm while the temperature ranges from -30 oC in winters to 30 oC in the summers.
Submitted date: 21 March 2023 Accepted date: 29 April 2023 Published date: 12 May 2023 Pp. 29
Second report of striped grass skink (Eutropis trivittata) from Gujarat, India
H. Patel*, D. Chauhan & R. Vyas *Corresponding author. E-mail: harshilpatel121@gmail.com
The striped grass skink, Eutropis trivittata (Hardwicke & Gray, 1827) is a wide ranging skink, distributed in northern and eastern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepa. The nomen of the species had a murky taxonomic history and for a considerable time period it was known by a junior subjective synonym, E. dissimilis, which was rectified by Amarasinghe et al. (2022). The present communication is the first record of the species from the Saurashtra region of Gujarat state, India. In Gujarat, the species was previously reported from Central Gujarat, based on one specimen found three decades ago.
The Sri Lankan Hump-nosed Viper, Hypnale nepa (Laurenti, 1768) is an endemic species restricted to montane regions above 900 m in Sri Lanka. The Horton Plains is a national park and a montane forest (alt. 2,100–2,300 m a.s.l.) mostly covered by wet grasslands. Faunal surveys carried out in the Horton Plains have so far recorded only three species of snakes: Aspidura trachyprocta, A. copei, and Ptyas mucosa. Herein, we confirm a fourth snake species, and the first photographic evidence of the occurrence of H. nepa from the Horton Plains, based on two observations made during random visits.
Submitted date: 24 June 2022 Accepted date: 23 April 2023 Published date: 12 May 2023 Pp. 26–27, pls. 15–17
First record of the cobweb spider (Steatoda erigoniformis) from India
R. Tripathi*, A.K. Jangid, U. Bhagirathan & A.V. Sudhikumar *Corresponding author. E-mail: rishikeshtripathi14@gmail.com
There are three species of the Genus Steatoda Sundevall, 1833 (Family Theridiidae Sundevall, 1833) distributed on the Indian subcontinent. Here, we report the first record of S. erigoniformis (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872) from India, specifically from Maharashtra and Rajasthan states. Previously, this species was known from Central Asia and China, but now its range extends south to Central India.
The long-jawed orb-weavers of the family Tetragnathidae are a cosmopolitan spider clade, particularly diverse in humid tropical and subtropical areas of the world. The subfamily Leucauginae comprises six genera and the genus Tylorida Simon, 1894 includes eight species. Four of them are reported from India and a comprehensive revision of Indian species was published by Sankaran et al. (2017) with a description of T. flava as a new species but based only on a female specimen. Here, the male T. flava is described for the first time along with illustrations of the genitalia.