Lutevula hortensia - a rare Emesine Reduviid bug, observed in Vellore

After working at the Makunda Christian Leprosy and General Hospital in Assam for nearly 30 years, my wife Ann and me joined the Christian Medical College at Vellore as consultants in the Missions Department. We were given a quarter in the Bagayam campus. I set up a moth light beside the quarter and observed insects that came to the light - they were few and relatively common species (compared to the ones we had in Assam).

In October 2023, when I went to see the light, I noted a new Emesine Reduviid bug which I immediately knew was rare. I collected it and contacted my facebook friend Dr. Sankararaman who told me to contact Dr. Hemant Ghate who had helped me publish descriptions of bugs at Makunda many years ago.

The bug was dissected by him in Pune and was found to be a rare species, Lutevula hortensia, that had been found in Sri Lanka and was being reported for the first time in India, 50 years after its last observation.

This observations was published by us in May 2024 in Journal of Threatened Taxa. The full-text can be downloaded from here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380888908_First_report_of_Lutevula_hortensia_Distant_Heteroptera_Reduviidae_Emesinae_from_India

Posted on May 26, 2024 05:02 PM by ivijayanand