New damselfly species discovered in Brahmagiri Hills

The new member was discovered in the Kanichar grama panchayat of Kannur district that formed a part of the Brahmagiri Hills of Coorg landscape

A group of researchers has described a new species of damselfly from the Brahmagiri Hills of Western Ghats.

Francy’s Reedtail (scientific name: Protosticta francyi sp. nov), the new member in the Ghat’s bustling Odonata population that now comprises 209 species with 82 endemics (183 species with 70 endemics in Kerala), was discovered in the Kanichar grama panchayat of Kannur district that formed a part of the Brahmagiri Hills of Coorg landscape.

The new damsel, which belongs to the diverse genus of Protosticta Selys, 1885, was first spotted by Vibhu Vipanchika, a Kannur-based dental surgeon and Odonate enthusiast. The finding was later described by a team of researchers comprising Kalesh Sadasivan, Vinayan P. Nair and K. Abraham Samuel of the Travancore Nature History Society’s odonata research group (TORG) and Muhamed Jafer Palot of the Zoological Survey of India.

The discovery, which has been published in the latest issue of peer-reviewed journal Entomon, has been named after Francy K. Kakkassery, a retired professor of zoology of St. Thomas College, Thrissur, and a pioneer in odonate studies in the State, for his contributions to odonate conservation and popularising the subject.

According to Dr. Sadasivan, Francy’s Reedtail is the third Protosticta species to be described by TORG researchers. The others are P. ponmudiensis Kiran, Kalesh & Kunte, 2015 from Ponmudi in Thiruvananthapuram and P. anamalaica Sadasivan, Nair & Samuel, 2022 from Peechi in Thrissur.

The new taxon is distinguished from all other Protosticta species seen in the Western Ghats by the presence of long prothoracic spines in the males, the structure of the tip of the male cerci and genital ligula. The new species inhabits the mid-elevation streams in the Brahmagiri-Coorg landscape of the Western Ghats.

The genus Protosticta consists of slender-built damselflies commonly known as reed tails or shadow damsels. They inhabit the hill streams in tropical, subtropical, and temperate jungles of the Indian subcontinent and south-eastern Asia. In India, they are distributed in the Western Ghats and the north-eastern region towards Myanmar. The genus has 53 extant species distributed from Pakistan, through the Indian subcontinent to Indo-China and south-eastern Asian islands.