Vol. 24 (1) (March 2021) Insect Environment New distributional record of Daphnis hypothous crameri Eitschberger & Melichar, (Sphingidae: Lepidoptera) from Odisha, India Ashirwad Tripathy1 and Kishore Chandra Sahoo2 1Department of Silviculture and Agroforestry, Birsa Agricultural University, Kanke, Ranchi, Jharkhand- 834006 India 2Division of Entomology, ICAR- Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa, New Delhi- 110012 India Corresponding author:
[email protected] The Indian subcontinent is well known for its high biodiversity, varied environment and habitats, and interesting geological history. However, much work remains to document and catalogue the species of India and their geographic distribution, especially for invertebrate groups, in which Odisha still remain unexplored as per insect diversity is concerned. Moths and butterflies contribute to essential ecosystem processes such as herbivory, pollination and decomposition in many terrestrial biomes. They are strongly associated with vegetation structure and composition, which make them a suitable indicator taxon for various ecological studies (Lomov et al., 2006). As they are highly sensitive to environmental changes and proved to be powerful indicator of forest disturbance moth communities are receiving increasing conservation interest (Luff and Woiwod, 1995, Summerville et al., 2004, Scalericio et al., 2009). Documenting the faunal diversity of moth can get evolutionary insights and a first step in developing conservation goals for the Lepidoptera (Gadhikar et al., 2015). Species level inventories will provide baseline data on the geographic distribution of species which is a prerequisite for management and preservation of natural habitats whereas local level inventories provide information for economic and educational activities (Arandhara et al., 2017). There are around 1,42,000 moth species in the world.