Coorgh – an insect paradise

 

Antlion's face and a head view of a Papilio polymnestor caterpillar

 

I was for a weekend in Coorgh in order to collect beetles directly in the Jungle. Coorgh has many scholah forests, a kind of forest endemic to South India. Basically it looks like there are meadows on the hilltops and the forest inside the valleys. Coorgh is yet very unspoilt and nature is still dominant in most places. This was already easily seen when walking around the roadside and observing all the beautiful species of butterflies, the most amazing being the endemic species Papilio polymnestor, a huge black and blue Papilio species. I already observed them on rare occasions in Bangalore directly and kind of though it to be a rare species, but in Coorgh it dwells very well and is seen almost everywhere.

Coorgh, at the time we were there was experiencing lots of rain, due to the monsoon, which meant for us, being wet (but who cares, when on the search for insects, that one has never found before) and eaten up by leeches. After a few bites, one gets used to it, and cares no longer about it, especially as leeches do not carry any diseases for humans. I have to say, I was quite surprised of my girlfriend, who took it without disgust or other understandable reactions, when first encountering a leech on ones leg.

 

Very primitive spider vs. a Cicada and a small, but cute, jumping spider

 

As Coorgh is quite far away from Bangalore and as we left in the early morning, we reached in late afternoon on Saturday, so we basically only set up our light trap to see what would come. The place of the trap was not the best, being in a shaded valley, but that was the only place we had electricity. If any of you readers has a good suggestion how to not depend on electricity for light collection and also not carrying an expensive generator, I will be more than happy to hear about that.

After putting the light we had a nice dinner and then waited. It was nice to see the insects arrived in waves at certain times. A very good time is dusk, many moths came to the light, after that around nine other small insects came, including some nice Rutelinidae, Melolonthidae and Anomala spec., as well as some very big, yet common, Elateridae, and some nice Dung beetle species. It seems to me that for dung beetles, every place in South India brings good results, most probably, because of so many cows running around. In every habitat I visited so far, I always found interesting species of dung beetles. At around ten, a single female of Xylotrupes gideon arrived at the light and I was very excited to see it, sadly no more Scarabaeidae came. It was a bit sad, because that place has very big Odontolabis burmeisteri at times, same for some other nice species, yet maybe it was the wrong time or the wrong place, where I set the trap, but still it was a very interesting experience, nearby the light trap I found a very nice Cicindela spec., also some Cicadas and a very big cricket species. The next morning we went to check out some of the jungle paths and I found a very nice Cicindelid, which, according to my friend Kumar, might be a new species. Anja found a very nice Prionidae and we also managed to find some very weird snails, moths, butterflies, many interesting grasshoppers and a thorny stick insect as well as another Cerambycidae species. The afternoon, we checked out a hill and did not find too many interesting species there, except for many different fly species and a nice Trichius spec. and some robber and hover flies. Also on some bushes I found an ootheca of Hierodula spec. (most probably H. grandis, as I found a huge female nearby). That night it was raining and not too many species came to the light, when we decided to pack everything up, we managed to see two huge Attacus atlas coming to the light. It was the first time that I encountered this species, which is regarded as common in Asia, and I have to admit it is really impressive and beautiful. As I knew the Thai and Malaysian variants quite well, I was surprised that this form contains a lot more pink in the wings than the other variants. The next day, sadly for all of us, we had to leave already, but it was a real great experience.

 

Attacus atlas and a day flying moth species, beautiful!

 

The habitat is a very good place to see the diversity of South Indian nature, definitely, if my job and timing allow it, I will go there again for collection. If not for insects, it will be for Chickory free coffee, which is as difficult to find in India as Lucanidae, haha,

Any questions or suggestions (especially about light and traps, I would like to hear from you)

 

 

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Stand: 06. November 2007 .

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