The earthworm fauna of the wetlands of India is highly undocumented. We have carried out a survey of earthworms in the Kuttanad wetland, an integral part of the Vembanad-Kol Ramsar Site, India’s largest wetland of international importance. Current investigation has documented 17 species belonging to 7 families. Megascolex travancorensis pentagonalis Stephenson, 1916 and Glyphidrilus fluviatilis Rao, 1922 were reported for the first time since their original descriptions. Based on the current study, M. t. pentagonalis is raised to species rank as M. pentagonalis from the subspecies status. G. fluviatilis and Lennogaster chittagongensis (Stephenson, 1917) are new records for the state of Kerala. Present results provide a more complete picture of the earthworm fauna of Kuttanad wetland.
The study of the avifaunal diversity was carried out in the Mangalore University campus, located in Dakshina Kannada District, Karnataka from 2013 to 2021, in and around the campus. A total of 150 bird species belonging to 18 orders and 56 families were recorded during the study. Out of these, the study area supports five species which are endemic to the Western Ghats. The feeding guild analysis revealed that the insectivorous group had the highest number of species (53 species). The study provides baseline data for monitoring the avifauna in the campus and demonstrates the importance of the area in bird conservation.
As a part of an ongoing study on the bio-ecology of earthworms, since 2017 surveys has been carried out in different ecosystems of Western Ghats, Karnataka. This has revealed the presence of one native peregrine species Drawida impertusa Stephenson, 1920 of the family Moniligastridae. The species is recorded for the second time from Karnataka state. The paper describes the morphological and anatomical details along with current distribution of the species.
T he Ornate Flying Snake, Chrysopelea ornata (Shaw 1802), grows up to 100-120 cm in length and has a slightly greenish body with a dorsum covered in a row of red, black, and orange spots. It has the spectacular ability to glide through the air from higher areas in the forest canopy to lower ones. Chrysopelea ornata is diurnal and predominantly arboreal, and its diet consists of small vertebrate animals including rodents, frogs, lizards, and bats (Babu et al. 2018; Indian Snakes 2022). The majority of the forests of India are home to this species, which is widely distributed in all northeastern Indian states, parts of the Eastern Ghats to the entire east (Odisha and West Bengal), and the Western Ghats (Maharashtra to Kerala and Tamil Nadu) (Melvinselvan and Nibedita 2016;Ahmed et al. 2020).Bat predation is well recorded in species like the Indian Ratsnake (Ptyas mucosa) and members of the family Boidae from India (Esbérard and Vrcibradic 2007;Mallick et al. 2021). However, predation on small mammals like bats by C. ornata has been rarely documented with evidence.Herein we report an opportunistic observation of predation of an insectivorous bat in the genus Pipistrellus (Kaup 1829) by a C. ornata during a field study on non-human primates in the Agumbe Ghats of Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka, India. At 1427 h on 19 September 2022, at 13.4964 N, 75.0804 E, we came across a roadkilled C. ornata on SH1, a highway connecting Shivamogga to Udupi that passes through Agumbe Ghat and the Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary. Upon closer inspection, we noticed a bat in its mouth (Fig. 1).The bat was identified as a member of the genus Pipistrellus using external morphology; further identification was not possible due to the extent of damage. Pipistrellus are vespertilionid bats, a family that includes most of the insectivorous bats. This genus is geographically
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