A preliminary study and new distributional records of family Erebidae (Leach, [1815]) (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea) from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India

In the present study, we have documented 59 species representing 43 genera of moths under family Erebidae (Leach, [1815]) from Aligarh district, the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The documented species represents 10 subfamilies of family Erebidae viz., Aganainae (5 species), Arctiinae (10 species), Calpinae (5 species), Ctenuchinae (3 species), Erebinae (22 species), Eulepidotinae (1 species), Hypocalinae (2 species), Lymantriinae (8 species), Pangraptinae (1 species), and Scoliopteryginae (1 species). Out of these 59 species, Sixteen species viz. are Asota plana Walker, 1854; Asota producta (Butler, 1875); Argina astrea (Drury, 1773); Olepa koslandana Orhant, 1986; Utetheisa pulchelloides Hampson, 1907; Eudocima homaena (Hübner, [1823]); Amata cysseus (Stoll, [1782]); Eressa confinis (Walker, 1854); Ophiusa tirhaca (Cramer, 1777); Pericyma cruegeri (Butler, 1886); Anticarsia irrorata (Fabricius, 1781); Hypocala deflorata (Fabricius, 1794); Hypocala violacea Butler, 1879; Cyana puella (Drury, 1773); Lymantria mathura Moore, [1866] and Episparis liturata (Fabricius, 1787) are recorded for the first time from Aligarh district, which also represents their first record from the present state of Uttar Pradesh.


Introduction
It is a fact that the ecosystems are changing due to the interference of anthropogenic activities and we are losing our biodiversity at a high rate without even knowing their existence. Therefore, our highest priority should be to explore undiscovered species and to document the faunal and floral components from these small but bio-diverse rich pockets at regional as well as national levels. Moths contemplate have been advancing at a moderate pace in our nation, and lack of literature and expertise are the main reasons.
The territory of Uttar Pradesh is rich in huge Lepidoptera fauna is less concentrated up until now. Although, many studied have been taken up as far as butterflies are concerned but the moth's diversity remains understudied as compared to Himalayan ranges and the Western Ghats. However, moths play a very important role in urban landscapes as agricultural pests (Sharma, 2011;Sharma and Bisen, 2013), night pollinators (Devoto et al., 2011;Le Croy et al., 2013), and indicators of ecological health (Holloway, 1985). Family Erebidae (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea) is the largest family of macro moths by species count 1,760 genera, 24,569 species (van Nieukerken et al., 2011) and contains a wide variety of well-known colorful and dull coloured moths and accountable for great economic losses and recurrent application of insecticide. There have been a number of studies in recent years examining moth diversity at different regions/states of India. It is not possible to discuss here all the studies from the Indian region but some of the important works are highlighted below. According to studies by Smetacek, (2008Smetacek, ( , 2009Smetacek, ( , 2011 at Kumaon Himalayas, Nainital, 81 species of Erebidae are present in that area. Northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra has been surveyed and known by 128 species of Erebidae . Singh and Singh, (2012) reported new records of two species of Arctiidae (Erebidae: Arctiinae) from the Western Ghats. Further, Gurule and Nikam, (2013) reported 101 erebid species from northern Maharashtra. Sekhon and Singh, (2015) found 41 species of Erebidae moths from the Western Ghats. Singh et al. (2017) reported 40 species of the family Erebidae from Topchanchi Wildlife Sanctuary, Jharkhand. Paul et al. (2016 documented 27 species of Erebidae from Delhi. Sondhi and Sondhi (2016) compiled a checklist of 96 species of Erebidae from Uttarakhand. The only study from Sunderban Biosphere Reserve represents 14 species of Arctiinae (Biswas et al., 2016). Further, 117 species of Erebidae were recorded from Shendurney and Ponmudi in Agastyamalai Biosphere Reserve, Kerala (Sondhi et al., 2018); 54 species from Koderma, Jharkhand (Singh et al., 2018); 37 species from Vagamon hills, the Western Ghats, Kerala Mathew et al. (2018). Apart from the above, some other important studies on this family includes: five species of fruit piercing moth (Erebidae: Erebinae) was concentrated by Ramkumar et al. (2010) from the Himalaya region; Twenty four species of Tiger moths of the family Arctiidae (now Erebidae) have been recorded by Kirti and Sodhi (2003); 14 species of Erebidae recorded from Neora Valley National Park, West Bengal by Shah et al. (2017) and 10 species belonging to family Erebidae published by Kalawate and Sharma (2017). Two major documentation of these families includes 525 species under 140 genera of subfamily Arctiinae (Erebidae) from India was compiled by Singh et al. (2014). Another documentation of 917 species of Erebidae has been compiled by Sanyal et al. (2018) from Indian Himalayas. The most recent studies by Nayak and Ghosh (2020) reported 35 species of Erebidae from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. Still and all more study of moth fauna is awaited.
The present study was conducted in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh in India. It lies approximately 382 km (237 mi) northwest of Lucknow (State's capital) and around 130 Km (81 mi) southeast of the capital, New Delhi. Aligarh has a storm-affected sticky subtropical climate; the average summer temperature is 28-38 °C (82-100 °F). The monsoon season begins in late June, proceeding till early October, bringing high moistness. Aligarh gets a large portion of its yearly precipitation of 800 mm (31 in) during these months. Temperatures at that point lessening and winter sets in December, and proceeds till February. Temperatures go between 5-11 °C (41-52 °F). The habitat surrounding the surveyed site excessively covers agricultural crops, trees, and ornamental plants that nourish a lot of caterpillars of moths' species and this is the reason for good faunal habitat for moth adults to survive. But no such collective studies were carried out so far on the Lepidoptera of Aligarh in particular. An illustrated list of the species of Erebidae moths found during the study is presented below. This is the first attempt at documentation, as no earlier studies from Aligarh have been carried out. The results of the present study will surely act as a baseline for documentation of moths' fauna of Aligarh district as well as for Uttar Pradesh.

Study area
The study was conducted during February 2018 to March 2020, at Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh (India). Five different sites viz. I. AC; II. AF; III. IG; IV. AT; and V. KH were selected on the basis of their habitat conditions ( Figure 2) and GPS coordinates of each sites are listed in Table 1.

Moth surveys and identification
The selected sites were surveyed for two years and 26 nights were spent in the field with light traps at night to assess the moth species present in the region. The common and most convenient method of collecting moths were carried out by installing a light trap, having 160-watt mercury vapour lamp and a white cloth sheet (3 x 4 m), hung between two vertical poles in such a way that it touches the surface and extends forwards over the ground slightly away from the direct source of light. The source of the light ought to be put at such a point that the entire sheet from the edge toward edge brightly reflects the light which permits the greatest assortment of moths separately with no harm. The light trap was operated from evening to night time i.e. 18.00 to 01.00. Moths were started to show up on the snare soon after sunset and most of the moths gathered between 18.00 to 22.00 hours after that the bounty of moths were gradually declined. The collected specimens were killed with the ethyl acetate fumes and processed as per standard strategies in lepidopterology. Dry preservation is done in fumigated entomological boxes and stored in the insect cabinets at the Zoology Department of AMU as well as at the ZSI, GPRC, Patna.
The number of moths collected from different localities were identified with the available literature (Hampson, 1892;1894;Kononenko and Pinratana, 2013;Singh et al., 2014;Kirti and Singh, 2015; as well as from literature mentioned in the introduction.

Results
During the study, 59 moth species were identified referable to 43 genera ( Table 2, Plates 1-5). Three sub-families, Erebinae, Arctiinae, and Lymantriinae represent maximum populations (Table 3). Out of these 59 species, 16 species collected from Aligarh district have been encountered for the first time from the present state of Uttar Pradesh thus represents their range extension also. To confirm their range extensions, their previously known distribution in India is also provided below: 1. Asota plana Walker, 1854; Distribution in Aligarh: IG. Distribution in India: Bombay, Throughout South India (Hampson, 1892); Jharkhand (East Singhbhum), Assam, Orissa, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu (Sambath, 2014).

Discussion
After Hampsonian period, apart from some scattered publications on moths as already mentioned above no exhaustive data of moths from this state have been seen. The area of Aligarh is highly populated as well as associated with many agricultural practices. Both these factors, definitely alter the population of moths by anthropogenic activities as well as the chemicals being used in agricultural land. Whether, these activities are affecting the population of moths or not is unclear as no such data is available about these moth species. This is the first attempt by the authors to study moths from Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh) and will act as a baseline for comprehensive studies of the moths of this region. Although, the number of nights spent in field are less, yet the reporting of 16 new records extending their range in Aligarh district suggests that more efforts should be made in future with focus on moths to provide a detail account of moth species from Aligarh district, which can be used in planning the conservation strategies and management plans for the Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh.

Conclusions
The current list of 59 Erebidae species including 16 new range extensions from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh suggests more survey are needed in the area and hopefully many more species would be added. Not only this, surveys should be conducted in other parts of the state as well as in protected areas focusing on other families of moths. That will definitely enrich the moth fauna of the state.

Authors' Contributions
All authors read and approved the final manuscript.