Hippodamia andrewesi (Sicard)

POORANI, J., 2023, An illustrated guide to lady beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) of the Indian Subcontinent. Part 1. Tribe Coccinellini, Zootaxa 5332 (1), pp. 1-307 : 150-151

Hippodamia andrewesi (Sicard)

( Fig. 105 )

Semiadalia andrewesi Sicard, 1913: 498 (Type, BMNH; Type locality: ‘Chamba’, Himachal Pradesh).— Korschefsky 1932: 360; Iablokoff-Khnzorian 1979: 66 (as a synonym of H. heydeni ); Poorani 2002a: 333.

Semiadalia andrewsi: Bielawski 1963a: 8–9 .

Diagnosis. Length: 4.00–5.00 mm. Form elongate oval, posteriorly narrowed; dorsum only moderately convex and glabrous. Head black with a creamy white or yellow transverse macula across anterior half of eyes; pronotum with a large black macula occupying most of disc except antero-and posterolateral corners and a median area on anterior margin creamy white or yellow; scutellar shield black; elytra orange-reddish with a black anchor-shaped macula ( Fig. 105a, b ); rarely most of the elytral pattern obsolete ( Fig. 105c ). Abdominal postcoxal line complete and extremely shallow. Genitalia not studied.

Distribution. India: Northwestern region (Himachal Pradesh; Jammu & Kashmir); Pakistan; Afghanistan.

Notes. It is a distinct species with a distribution restricted to the northwestern parts of India and not commonly collected. Sicard’s type (BMNH, examined) is illustrated here. It was treated as a synonym of Hippodamia heydeni by Iablokoff-Khnzorian (1979: 66) and Poorani (2002) followed the same with a note that ‘Kapur and Iablokoff-Khnzorian do not agree on the identity of H. heydeni ’. Sufficient material was not studied in this work for comparison and it is likely to be confused with H. variegata , its more commonly collected congener. Bielawski (1963) recorded it from Afghanistan (as ‘ Semiadalia andrewsi ’) and described it in detail with illustrations of the elytral pattern variations and the genitalia.

Figures

FIGURE 105. Hippodamia andrewesi (Sicard): a. Sicard’s type (BMNH); b, c. live adult (Himachal Pradesh) (Photo credit: P. L. Sharma).