The preliminary study on diversity of moths in bharata mata college thrikkakara, kalamassery municipality

Abstract

Arthropods are considered as the most successful animal group which consists of more than two-third of all animal species on earth. Class Insecta comprise about 90% of tropical forest biomass (Fatimah & Catherine 2002). Order Lepidoptera is the most diverse and second largest in class Insecta (Benton, 1995). Moths constitute the sub-order Heterocera of order Lepidoptera that has important roles in the forest ecosystem as herbivores and as food for predatory and parasitic species (Sivasanakaran K. et al. 2011). The present study was conducted at K M to evaluate the biodiversity of moths. During the present study, a total of 17 moth specimens were collected from the study area which represented a total of 5 Families distributed among 11 Genera and 13 Species. The highest species richness was shown by the family Erebidae and the least by the family Geometridae. The results of this preliminary study are promising; it sheds light on the unknown biodiversity of KM which needs to be strengthened through comprehensive future survey. This work help in future to conduct a moth diversity study easily and also help to find out the extinct, extant and threatened species in that particular area.