Records of the Zoological Survey of India - A Journal of Indian Zoology

Dipanwita Das ¹, P. Girish Kumar ¹

Affiliations
1 Zoological Survey of India, M-Block, New Alipore, Kolkata-700053, West Bengal, IN

Abstract

Mutillidae is a cosmopolitan family of aculeate hymenoptera. They are commonly referred to as 'velvet ants' because of the appearance of the dense hair that covers their bodies. They exhibit strong sexual dimorphism. The males are winged (rarely brachypterous or apterous) and possess a normal apocritan mesosoma, while the females are entirely apterous, and most of them exhibit complete fusion of the sclerites (Brothers, 1995). Even though Mutillidae are distributed in all biogeographical regions, their greatest diversity occurs in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. They are commonly found in desert and sandy areas.

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Dipanwita Das ¹, P. Girish Kumar ¹

Affiliations
1 Zoological Survey of India, M-Block, New Alipore, Kolkata-700053, West Bengal, IN

Abstract

The genus Odontomutilla was described by Ashmead in 1899 based on the type species Mutilla saussurei Sichel et Radoszkowski. Thirty four valid species of this genus are reported from the Oriental Region of which eleven species from the Indian subcontinent (Lelej, 2005). The species Odontomutilla speciosa (Smith) is so far recorded from China. In this paper, we report O. speciosa for the first time from the Indian subcontinent based on the specimen collected from Maharashtra, India. Since the original description is not sufficient for the proper identification of the species, detailed redescription with sufficient photographs is provided here. A checklist of the species of the genus Odontomutilla from the Indian subcontinent is also provided.

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