By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Nov 25: A new species of fruit fly named as Euphranta undulata has been discovered from Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya. The Euphranta undulata was found from bamboo ecosystem of Umiam. Another species was collected from endemic shrub, Goniothalamus keralensis from Valara, Idukki district (which is a part of the Western Ghats Mountains) and was named Euphranta goniothalami.
The discovery was an outcome of an inter-institutional joint project under DST-ANRF-ARG’s “Faunistic studies on bamboo-shoot fruit flies (Diptera:Tephritidae) of Western Ghats and Northeast India”, undertaken by Dr KJ David, Senior Scientist, ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, Bengaluru, Karnataka, and Dr Kennedy N, Assistant Professor, College of Post Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences, CAU (Imphal), Umiam. The taxonomical identification was supported and confirmed by renowned Tephretid taxonomist, Dr David Lawrence Handcock, retired Entomological Consultancy Cairns, Australia.
The discovery has been published in Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift (DEZ), Pensoft Publishers, which is one of the world’s oldest international journals in systematic Entomology (published in vol. 72 (2) 2025, 367–375 | DOI: 10.3897/dez.72.165084).
In 2024, Dr KJ David, Dr Kennedy N and team members documented four new species of Zeugodacus Hendel (Diptera, Tephritidae, Dacinae, Dacini) and new records of dacines from India.
The researchers have acknowledged Prof Pranab Dutta, Chairman, School of Crop Protection, and Prof D Thakuria, Dean, CPGS-AS CAU (I), Umiam, for their continuous guidance and support for carrying out this piece of research work.
