Morpho Taxonomic Studies of Syrphid Pollinators (Insecta: Diptera) from Lesser Himalayas: Occasional Paper No. 411

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Materials and methods. 3. Results. 4. Systematic account. 5. Discussion. 6. Summary. 8. Acknowledgement. 8. References. For the first time, a consolidated study has been done on the current taxonomic status of pollinating hoverflies from the Himalayan landscape across the state of Himachal Pradesh. This is the first-ever consolidated report on hoverflies from the classified agro-climatic zones of the state enumerating 119 species under 46 genera 12 tribe over 3 subfamilies. Revised taxonomic characters, updated genera and sub-genera status, annotated photographic identification key for all of the species as well as photo plates of all the species along with their distribution map have been introduced in this research work which was not available before. The current study includes description of a first time report of a species from Oriental region, and also report of a new genus from India. Moreover, this study includes first time report of 2 species from India. Further, 18 species have been recorded for the first time from the state of Himachal Pradesh during study time by authors. 2 species have been also describes as new to science. Overall hopefully this effort will catalyse the better and easy identification and conservation of hoverflies along this Himalayan state.…