Dung Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Coprinae) of Thar Desert of Gujarat

The Indian Thar Desert is restricted to thirteen districts of Rajathan, ten distrcts of Gujarat, four districts of Haryana and three districts of Panjab states, but the present study pertains to Thar Desert of Gujarat. The dung beetles are very intresting insects belonging to subfamily Coprinae (Scarabaeidae). They play very important role in pasture ecosystem, environment and national econmy. They break down tons of animal dung every day into nodules or balls, roll them into subterran chambers or tunnels of the soil to buried and degraded into the soil to increase the fertility of the soil, by doing so they also destroy the habitat for the larvae of many pest flies of domestic animals, which they lay eggs in the dung. Some of them are the intermediate hosts for the parasitesof domestic and wild animals. Arrow (1931) published a fauna volume on Indian Coprinae in the series "Fauna of British India." Unfortunately, not a single species have been reported from Gujarat. Balthasar (1963) also published the monographs on Scarabaeidae of Palaeartic and Oriental Region. Biswas (1978a and 1978b), Biswas and Chatterjee (1985), Biswas etal (1997). Chatterjee and Biswas (1995, 2000, 2003, 2004) studied the Scarabaidae fauna of Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Meghalaya, Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur. Sewak (1985, 1986, 1991, 2004, 2005 and 2006) worked out the Coprinae fauna of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. The present study is based on the collection of dung beetles, collected from Ahemdabad, Banaskantha, Jamnagar, Junagarh, Kuchchh, Mahesana, Pataqn, Porbandar, Rajkot and Surendernagar districts of thar Desert of Gujarat. The district Banaskantha, Mahesana, Rajkot and Junagarh are partly comes under desert.