New faunal records of dung beetles from district Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan
By: Ayesha Nasir, Mubashar Hussain, Samman Fatima, Nadia Noureen, Mobeen Ghazanfar
Key Words: Dung beetles, Faunal records, Pakistan
J. Bio. Env. Sci. 9(2), 122-128, August 2016.Certificate
The study was carried out to explore the dung beetle fauna from district Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan with emphasizes on the abundance and richness of species, distribution and description from cropland and pastures. Dung beetles specimens were sampled randomly from various parts District Sialkot. The specimens were collected by hand picking within the dung pat and by digging under and near the dung pats in natural pastures and croplands during 2014 – 2015. Specimens were subjected to identification by using standard morphological keys. Total 595 specimens were recorded from the study site belonging to 2 families, 5 tribes, 9 genera, and 25 species out of which four species Tiniocellus (Tiniocellus) modestus (Roth, 1851), Aphodius (Calaphodius) Moestus (Fabricius), Aphodius (Calamosternus) granarius (Linnaeus, 1767) and Onthophagus troglodyta (Wiedemann, 1823) were amongst new records from pakistan. The study emphasized on further exploration of fauna of Scarabaeidae family in the district Sialkot with special reference to ecological parameters.