Top 19 Most Common Insects in Kanniyakumari
Insects, unparalleled in diversity, abound in Kanniyakumari, their forms and behaviors shaped distinctly by the varying geography of the region. From urban landscapes to lush forests, each environment hosts unique insect communities that not only play pivotal roles in the ecosystem - as pollinators or pests - but also mirror the intricate relationship between a region's habitats and its biodiversity. Join us as we explore the 19 most common insects found across this vibrant state!
Most Common Insects
1. Traminda mundissima
Adults are brown or green, usually with a dark edged yellow arc across the forewing. The hindwings have an angular tornus.
2. Sundowner moth
Its wingspan is about 60–84 mm. Head ochreous white, the basal joint of palpi dark brown. Thorax dark brown above with a broad ochreous-white stripe on vertex. Abdomen dark brown above, with a series of dorsal ochreous-white spots. Forewings reddish-brown with dark stria. There is a pale patch at base of inner margin and an indistinct antemedial angulate line. An irregularly waved medial line with pale outer edge and somewtimes tinged with purple and rufous. Some vinous patches beyond it. Reniform is a narrow lunule with a vinous dash beyond it. There is a crenulate postmedial line found with medial black lunules on it and one towards inner margin, and joined by a crenulate line from near apex. A marginal black specks series also present. Hindwings are fuscous brown where the base and a diffused medial irregular band are pale. An ochreous patch with black strai on it at center of outer margin. Cilia pale. Ventral side pale with fuscous submarginal band towards inner margin of each wing.
3. Woolly Wall Bee
Megachile lanata is a species of bee in the family Megachilidae. It was described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1775.
4. Lily borer
The wingspan of the moth is about 4 cm. Its head, thorax and forewings are very dark brown, but paler toward the wingtips. Sub-basal, median and postmedial indistinct waved lines are black. A curved submarginal ochreous line with ferrous colored lunuled found on each side of it. There is a marginal black lunule series. The hindwings are practically white. Tarsi bear black and white stripes.
5. Thyas honesta
Its wingspan is about 84–104 mm. Head and thorax reddish chestnut in colour, where the third joint of palpi black. Abdomen crimson. Forewings reddish chestnut, slightly irrorated with dark scales. There are traces of a sinuous antemedial line with three specks on it. Reniform greyish, where the lower part more or less completely filled in with black. A curved postmedial series of white specks with an indistinct band beyond it angled at vein 6 and met by a dark streak from the apex. A marginal series of specks present. Hindwings crimson with black sub-marginal medial patch. Larva ophiusine-shaped with an apple-greenish body and finely lined longitudinally with purple-centered double white lines. The dorsolateral pair of conical tubercles are yellowish patched with red. The larvae feed on Careya, Barringtonia and Planchonia species.
6. Xyleutes strix
Xyleutes strix is a moth of the family Cossidae. It is found in India, south-eastern Asia, Sundaland, the Philippines, Sulawesi, the Moluccas and New Guinea.
7. Crotalaria pod borer
The wingspan is about 40 mm. The species is extremely variable in wing pattern as well as ground colour. It differs from Mangina argus in the head, thorax and forewing being orange yellowish or whitish. The abdomen and hindwings are bright orange. Markings and spots are similar to its neighbor species. The head of the caterpillar is reddish brown when fully grown. Its body is black with white intersegmental rings that contain broken black transverse lines. Spiracles are in orange patches.
8. Redspot
Male. Upperside pale cupreous-red, veins finely blackish-brown. Forewing with the costa and outer margin with a narrow brown band of fairly even width throughout. Hindwing with the costal space and abdominal fold pale brown; outer margin more narrowly brown, narrowing hindwards, the abdominal space outside the fold suffused narrowly with brown; a sub-terminal brown spot in each of the three anal interspaces, margined by a slender greyish-blue line, often obsolescent; tails brown, tipped with white. Underside pale grey, markings pale reddish-brown, edged with dark brown and white lines. Forewing with three somewhat linear spots in the cell, increasing in size outwards, sub-basal, medial and terminal; a similar spot below the medial spot; a discal band of six conjoined spots, with a seventh disconnected, the series slightly outwardly curved and somewhat irregular, the fourth and sixth from the costa being a little outwards, some dark suffusion in the middle of the hinder marginal space. Hindwing with a sub-basal small round spot in the cell, one on the costa above it and another below it, a larger spot in the middle, with a still larger spot on the costa above it and a smaller one below it, a bar at the end of the cell, composed of two conjoined spots, the lower shifted half outwards; a discal outwardly curved series of nine spots, the first six from the costa conjoined, the second the largest, its outer lower end touching the inner upper end of the third; the fifth inwards, the sixth and seventh outwardly oblique, the latter somewhat linear and detached, the ninth represented by a short line running in on the abdominal margin and well separated from the seventh, with the eighth, a minute spot between them, a small black spot at the anal angle, another in the first interspace, both capped with orange, some blue and white scaling in the interspace between them, a white anteciliary thread from the anal angle to vein 2; cilia brown, with a white line in its middle; both wings with a sub-marginal series of small lunular marks, only faintly indicated in the forewing. Antennae black, whitish beneath, club with an orange-red tip; frons black; head and body blackish-brown above, grey beneath. Female. Upperside. Foreicing pale blue, the outer borders blackish-brown with a violet tint, narrow on the costa to the end of the cell, and also narrow on the hinder margin, the apex broadly blackish-brown, the band running down the outer margin about twice as broadly as it is on the costa; the width of all these blackish marginal bands varies somewhat in different examples. Hindwing with the blue ground colour of the wing suffused more or less over its whole extent with blackish-brown, the suffusion being darkest on the costal part; a very small anal black spot, sometimes absent, a large sub-terminal black spot in each of the next two interspaces and some smaller sub-terminal spots becoming obsolete upwards, the spot in the first interspace crowned with orange, the other with whitish; a white line inside the black terminal line; tails blackish, tipped with white; the extra tail at the end of vein 3 about half the length of the others. Underside as in the male, the ground colour paler. The host plants of the larvae include Terminalia catappa and Smilax zeylanica.
9. Red masked noctuid moth
Its wingspan is about 33 mm. Forewings of male without costal vesicles. Forewings with longitudinal white streak entire, and with an indenture on its upper edge and a small black spots near its lower edge. A red marginal line is present. Cilia of both wings white.
10. Falana sordida
The distal margin of the forewings has a falcate apex and dentate process dividing the more dorsal half. Facies on the dark greyish ground are the paler grey antemedial band. Transverse white dash of the reniform and submarginal black flecks found near the apex. Eggs depressed and light green dome shaped. Hatchlings are green-tinged honey yellow, and the darker setae arise from blackish-green spots. Mature caterpillars are cylindrical with orange heads and dorsolateral tubercles on their head. Body has black and bluish-white transverse bands with two black bands per segment. Hosts plants are Mallotus and Ficus species.
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