Platylestes kirani - Misplaced Pages

Species of damselfly

Platylestes kirani

Male

Female
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Odonata
Suborder:	Zygoptera
Family:	Lestidae
Genus:	Platylestes
Species:	P. kirani
Binomial name
*Platylestes kirani* Emiliyamma, Palot & Charesh, 2020

Platylestes kirani is a damselfly species in the family Lestidae. This species is known from coastal wetlands in Kerala, South India. The species is named after the late C.G. Kiran, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the odonate studies in Kerala.

Description and habitat

It is a small dull colored damselfly with apple green eyes. Its prothorax and thorax are in yellowish green color, paler at the sides. There is a broad black stripe on the dorsum of the thorax, straight on the inner border, outwardly expanded at the upper, middle and at the lower end, as in Lestes praemorsus. There are a large number of black spots on the thorax. Its wings are transparent with short and broad pterostigma having white or creamy yellow inner and outer ends. Its abdomen is in olivaceous to warm reddish brown in color with black apical rings on each segments. Anal appendages are whitish with the superiors black at base, curling in at apices to meet each other. Inferior appendages are about half the length of superiors and ends at the middle of sharp spine of inner membrane like expansion of superiors, slender throughout its length, convergent and meet at extreme apices.

Female closely resembles the male in most respects, differing mainly in sexual characters, as in Platylestes platystylus.

This species can be easily distinguished from P. platystylus which also common in Kerala by its broad black band on synthorax.

This species is mainly found foraging inside the shoreline vegetation and occasionally resting on the stems or on the leaf blades of grasses and sedge.