The new species were found after examining specimens dating to 1992 and 2015.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce the discovery of two new beetle species in India after 127 years. The new beetle species were found in the genus Melolontha, bringing the total number of Indian species to 12.
As per the picture attached with the post, the two species of beetles have been discovered in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh by the scientists of the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata. Devanshu Gupta, Denis Keith, Debika Bhunia, Priyanka Das, and Kailash Chandra conducted the study.
The new species were found after examining specimens dating to 1992 and 2015.
The post by MoEF&CC was captioned as, ''Two new beetle species have been discovered in India after 127 years in the genus Melolontha, bringing the total number of Indian species to 12. These discoveries were made by examining specimens dating back to 1992 and 2015, housed at @ZoologicalI, Kolkata.''
See the pictures here:
The findings have been published recently in the journal Zootaxa, a peer-reviewed scientific mega journal for animal taxonomists, published by Magnolia Press in New Zealand.
Reacting to the discovery one Twitter user said, ''India & its biodiversity, amazing.'' Another said, ''Congratulations to the officials of @ZoologicalI.''
Notably, Beetles are the most common type of insect. According to biologists, there are at least 400,000 species or types of beetle, making them the most varied animal species on earth. According to AZ animals, they are found all over the world except in the oceans, Antarctica, and the Arctic even though there are species built to withstand intense cold and others are at least semi-aquatic.
While some species are beneficial, some are terrible pests. A few months back, a rare and agonising affliction dubbed "Christmas Eye", was reported to have been caused by the toxic secretions of a tiny native beetle, in a remote part of southeastern Australia.