unseen

The Large-lipped Tethys Tiger Beetle (Jansenia rostrulla)

Usally no matter the species i manage to capture them by simply waiting and moving slowly so they dont notice my giant gears across their vision. But the fact that in my five years journey of macro photography i was never able to capture even a single Tiger beetle could tell how senstive they are.

Tiger beetles are predators with wings and has fast legs which tends to actively hunt during day and have seen few species. They just run fast to capture their prey like a lone wolf, When speed is measured as body lengths covered per second they are considered some of the fastest running insects in the world. In other words if they are in size of cheetah they would easily win.

Tiger beetles do run so fast that their vision cannot continuously process their surroundings. During high-speed chases they experience brief periods of functional blindness. To cope with this they stop frequently to reorient visually.

This tiger beetle came inside the frame where i was trying to capture another insect which turns out to be an red listed species. when it comes to IUCN red list i have seen only dragonflies and butterflies in insects but there are also tiger beetle species represented on the List which was new to me.

Jansenia rostrulla

Here is the red listed species from tamilnadu

1. Lophyra cerina — CR; Udangudi.
2. Jansenia grossula — CR; near Thoothukudi.
3. Jansenia pseudodromica — CR; Tiruchirappalli (Tirchy).
4. Jansenia crassipalpis — VU; Coimbatore (CBE) & Tirupur.
5. Jansenia rostrulla — VU; Pudukottai.

When I went again to check the population, I saw a pair that also seemed unbothered by my gear. I took the freedom to photograph them again. I am not into capturing mating behaviour yet, but recording this was necessary as the species is disappearing.

First Record of Indratilla

Velvet ants are diverse but still underexplored. Most genera here follow the typical pattern: females are wingless, while males are fully winged. But Indratilla breaks this rule, its males are completely wingless, a feature seen in only a tiny fraction of velvet ant genera globally.

Originally recorded only from Sri Lanka, I was fortunate to document what appears to be the first photographic record of Indratilla from India.

In the vast family of velvet ants (Mutillidae), which includes around 230–260 genera worldwide, only a handful feature males that are wingless. Even rarer are genera that are monotypic (having just one species) and have wingless or brachypterous (reduced-winged) males. Globally, only five such genera are known. That places Indratilla among the top 2% of velvet ant genera when it comes to this unusual evolutionary adaptation.

Even more accurate is Indratilla appears to be the only monotypic genus with wingless males recorded from Asia. Out of an estimated 50–70 genera in the continent that places it in a class of its own rarity zone.

Even though I found a similar species that looks alike, I still can’t confirm the genus as females are rarer and have been less studied even for experts.

India’s Hidden Fruit Fly World— Gibbifronta

When we see flies most people are hesitant as they are known to found near overripe bananas. But there are around 300 species of fruit flies across 97 genera in india. Each has thier own size, color and wing patterns. Not everyone is pest, many are harmless forest species that help ecosystems by pollinating wild plants or recycling plant material.

While i was trekking in a hill i come acrossed so many tiny flies and this one species which seems to be in abdunant which specifically sat on paticular flower. Its a new species discovered for unique stucture on forehead called as Gibbifronta pavoniae found in Karanataka. Pavonia odorata is the plant species this flies are seen mostly.

Gibbifronta stands out in three clear ways it has a hump-shaped forehead unlike any other Indian fruit fly, its wings and body do not match those of known genera and its DNA shows it is not closely related to them. These differences together show that Gibbifronta is its own distinct genus.