Diversity and Economic Importance of Erebidae Moths in Pandharkawada Forest Division, Maharashtra, India

Introduction

Most Lepidoptera are moths, which act as herbivores, night-time pollinators and food for bats, birds and other insect-eaters. Erebidae is one of the largest families of Noctuoidea, with over 24,000 described species [17]. After the molecular study of Zahiri et al. [18], the family was enlarged to include the tiger and lichen moths (Arctiinae), the tussock moths (Lymantriinae) and several subfamilies formerly placed in Noctuidae, such as Catocalinae, Calpinae, Erebinae and Hypeninae.

Erebid caterpillars use many foods, from grasses and legumes to lichens and algae. A few species damage crops, others help to control weeds, and the adults of some groups pierce ripening fruit. Because many moths respond to changes in vegetation, pesticide use and artificial light, moth communities are increasingly used to indicate habitat condition.

Indian moths were first catalogued by Hampson [4], and recent field guides make regional recording easier [13,15]. In Maharashtra, moths have been inventoried in the northern Western Ghats [5,14], in northern Maharashtra [3] and in the state fauna volume [10], and Pawara et al. [11] reported 55 erebid species in 10 subfamilies from Nandurbar district. Erebidae have also been studied in the agroecosystems of northern Kerala [16], the Indian Erebinae have been listed [8], and checklists exist for Delhi [7] and Uttar Pradesh [2]. Local inventories from Vidarbha, however, remain scarce. The author has earlier studied the birds, butterflies, odonates and moths of Pandharkawada, and the present work adds the Erebidae of this cotton-dominated landscape to provide a baseline checklist and to note the ecological and economic significance of the species.

The objectives of the present study were to prepare a checklist of the Erebidae of the Pandharkawada Forest Division, to describe their subfamily composition and larval host use, and to assess their economic importance and the role of forest and scrub in supporting them.

Materials and Methods

Study area

The study was carried out in the Pandharkawada Forest Division, Yavatmal district, in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, close to the border with Telangana. Pandharkawada Forest Division lies between 19°52′ N and 20°42′ N latitude and 77°31′ E and 78°34′ E longitude (Figure 1). The climate is tropical, with a hot summer, a monsoon from June to September and a mild winter. The landscape is a mosaic of tropical dry deciduous forest with teak, scrub and grassland, farmland where cotton, soybean and pigeon pea are widely grown, villages and water bodies. Moths were surveyed at six sites with different habitats (Figure 1b; Table 1).

Survey and identification

Moths were recorded from June 2023 to October 2025 at six sites (Table 1). Records were obtained through opportunistic day and night surveys, and each moth was photographed in the field with a Sony a9 III camera and 90 mm lens. Photographs were identified with Hampson [4], Shubhalaxmi [13], Sondhi [15] and online moth databases. Classification follows Zahiri et al. [18] and van Nieukerken et al. [17], and subfamily placements are provisional. Larval host plants were taken from Robinson et al. [12] and the literature. Species were grouped by subfamily and host use, percentages were calculated from the number of species, and records identified only to genus, subfamily or tribe level were not counted as species.

Results

A total of 56 erebid records were obtained, of which 49 were identified to species level (Table 2). The remaining seven records were identified only to genus, subfamily or tribe level and are not counted among the 49 species: Gesonia sp., Hypena (Hypenia) sp., an unidentified Hypeninae, Lithosini spp., Plecoptera spp., Rhesala sp. and Sypnoides sp.

Discussion

The 49 species show that the Pandharkawada Forest Division and the surrounding farmland support a diverse erebid fauna of 12 subfamilies, with Arctiinae and Catocalinae together making up about 37% of the species. Erebinae was the richest subfamily in Nandurbar district, Maharashtra (20 of 55 species) [11], and 121 erebid species in ten subfamilies were recorded in agroecosystems of northern Kerala [16]. Such differences probably reflect vegetation, rainfall, sampling effort and changing subfamily concepts [18].

Only six species (12.2%) are crop or fruit pests, so about 88% of the fauna has no known crop damage (Figure 5). Anomis flava is the only species tied to cotton, and the best-known cotton bollworms belong to other moth families. Eudocima materna is a pest only as an adult, while its larvae feed on wild Menispermaceae climbers [12]. Pest status can change if broad-spectrum insecticides remove natural enemies, so periodic monitoring is useful.

Several species also provide indirect benefits. Hypena laceratalis feeds on the invasive weed Lantana camara, and many species develop on wild plants, grasses and sedges of margins and bunds and not on crops. Adults are eaten by bats, birds, lizards and spiders, and insectivorous bats are known to suppress agricultural pests [1,9]. These benefits are inferred from the biology of the species and were not measured here.

More than three times as many species (20, 40.8%) use forest, scrub or wild vegetation as larval food as are crop or fruit pests (6, 12.2%) (Figure 5). Forest and scrub therefore appear to supply larval food and shelter that cotton fields alone cannot, and to act as a source of moths and their predators for the farmland. Protecting forest patches, tree rows and bund vegetation and reducing broad-spectrum insecticides would help sustain these moths and support sustainable agriculture.

This study has limitations: records are largely photographic, there are no abundance data, sampling effort was uneven, seven records are identified only to genus, subfamily or tribe level and seven species are provisional. Similar-looking species in groups such as Olepa can be separated reliably only by DNA barcoding [6]. In conclusion, the cotton-dominated landscape of the Pandharkawada Forest Division supports 49 erebid species, mostly non-pests, and seasonal sampling of forest, field-margin and cotton habitats, host rearing and barcoding are needed to confirm these patterns.

Acknowledgement and Funding

The author is grateful to Mr. Kiran Jagtap, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Pandharkawada Forest Division, for his kind permission, encouragement and support during the field work. The author also sincerely thanks the field officers and field staff of the Pandharkawada Forest Division for their valuable help, guidance and cooperation in the forest areas during the survey.

Funding: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency

Conflict of Interest: The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical Statement

The study was based on non-invasive field photography, and no animal was collected or harmed. Permission for the field work in the forest areas was given by the Deputy Conservator of Forests, Pandharkawada Forest Division.

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