Document Type : Research Article
Authors
1
Institute of Entomology, Guizhou University; The Provincial Special Key Laboratory for Development and Utilization of Insect Resources, Guizhou University; Guiyang, 550025, China
2
Department of Entomology, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi 46000, Pakistan
3
National Insect Museum, National Agriculture Research Centre, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
4
Department of Zoology, University of Baltistan, Skardu, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
5
Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
6
Tribhuvan University, Patan Multiple Campus, Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur, Nepal
10.48311/jibs.12.01.147
Abstract
The family Syrphidae (Diptera) is among the well-explored and taxonomically up-to-date dipteran families in Pakistan, with over 100 species documented to date. In this study, nine tribes, 26 genera, and 46 syrphid species were recorded from the Pothwar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Of these, three genera, Didea Macquart, 1834, Melangyna Verrall, 1901, and Parasyrphus Matsumura, 1917, along with seven species, including Allobaccha apicalis (Loew, 1858), Asarkina bhima Ghorpadé, 1994, Didea vockerothi Ghorpadé, 1994, Eristalinus tristriatus (Meijere, 1911), Melangyna remota (Brunetti, 1923), Parasyrphus thompsoni Ghorpadé, 1994, and Rhingia laticincta Brunetti, 1907, are newly recorded from Pakistan. The majority of these species were collected from forest areas, particularly near standing water or under pine tree canopies. Sixteen species were also observed on the invasive plant Parthenium hysterophorus in the region. This study provides a preliminary checklist of 46 species from the Pothwar region, including their current distribution in Pakistan, habitat information, and digital photographs of each species. In terms of regional species richness, Punjab province contained the largest number of species (44 species: 95.6%) in Pakistan, followed by Azad Kashmir (31 species: 67.3%), Islamabad Capital Territory (28 species: 60.8%), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (20 species: 56.5%), Sindh (11 species: 23.9%), Balochistan (10 species: 21.7%), and Gilgit-Baltistan (7 species: 15.2%).
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