Volume 24, Issue 73, January - June, 2023

Rediscovery of crepuscular moth Mimeusemia ceylonica Hampson, 1893 (Noctuidae: Agaristinae) after 127 years and its distribution in India

Thalavaipandi Subbaiah^1♦, Prasanth Prakhalathan²

¹Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Jakkur P.O., Bangalore 560064, India
²Tamilnadu Wetlands Mission, No.1, Jeenis Road, Saidapet, Chennai- 600 015, India

^♦Corresponding author
Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Jakkur P.O., Bangalore 560064 India

ABSTRACT

Mimeusemia ceylonica (Hampson, 1893) is a moth species belonging to the subfamily Agaristinae and family Noctuidae and was first illustrated and described by Hampson in 1893 from Sri Lanka from the collections of moths in the British museum. The species has been rediscovered after 127 years during a moth survey conducted in the year 2020 at the Agasthyamalai Community-based Conservation Centre (ACCC) situated in the buffer zone of Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR), Tirunelveli district. The species has been photographed for the first time, before that only illustration of the species was available in the literature. This is the first record of the species from Tamil Nadu, India.

Keywords: Mimeusemia ceylonica, rediscovery moth, tamilnadu, tirunelveli, kmtr

Species, 2023, 24(73), e20s1020

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi/v24i73/e20s1020

Published: 27 February 2023