Faunistics of Tiger Beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae) from Pakistan

The present biogeographic distribution of tiger beetle fauna is an attempt to register all modern taxa from Pakistan. It includes 55 taxa under 14 genera and 11 subgenera. Three species, Cylindera (Eriodera) albopunctata (Chaudoir 1852), Cicindela viridilabris (Chaudoir 1852) and Neocollyris (Neocollyris) redtenbacheri (Horn 1894) are recorded from Pakistan for the first time.


Introduction
! Biogeographically, the major part of Pakistan is Palaearctic (Hindu Kush, Karakorum, western Himalaya, Sulaiman Range, North Pakistan sandy desert and western Indus Valley) while the rest of the area is Oriental (Indus River Delta, eastern Indus Valley desert, Thar desert, Rann of Kutch in southern Punjab and eastern Himalaya) and traces of Afrotropical (Ethiopian region) from southern Iran to extreme southwestern of Baluchistan. The Hindu Kush, Karakorum, and Himalaya are a major biogeographic boundary between the subtropical and tropical flora and fauna of the Indian subcontinent and the temperate-climate Palaearctic ecozone. It is interesting to point out that the insect fauna, especially tiger beetles, completely confirm the transitional position of Pakistan between Palearctic and Oriental regions.
Tiger beetles (Cicindelidae) have been an appropriate indicator taxon for determining regional patterns of biodiversity (Pearson and Cassola 1992;Cassola and Pearson 2000), because the taxonomy of this group is stabilized, biology and general life history are well understood, they are readily observed and manipulated in the field and the family occurs world wide inhabiting many different habitat types. Each species tends to be specialized within a narrow habitat and the family includes species of potential economic importance (Pearson and Cassola 1992). In addition, diversity patterns of tiger beetles are often correlated with that of other groups (Pearson and Cassola 1992;Rodriguez et al. 1998) and there is much interest in these natural predators to control certain crop pests (Rodriguez et al. 1998).
Tiger beetles have worldwide distribution (except Tasmania, Antarctica and some remote oceanic Islands) that cover a variety of habitats ranging from alpine meadows to desert grasslands and tropical rain forests (Pearson 1988;Rodriguez et al. 1998). The total number of species presently known is over 2700 (Cassola Rome-Italy). Most of the species require habitats with access to bare ground, such as stream and pond edges, salt flats, dunes and open patches in grasslands (Pearson 1988;Hoback et al. 1998). Each species rarely occurs in more than one or a very few habitat types (Pearson 1984;Rodriguez et al. 1998).
In the Indian subcontinent literature on tiger beetles started with listing of species by Schaum 1863; Atkinson 1889 and Horn 1905a; l905b. Annandale and Horn (1909) provided an annotated listing of the species found in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, accompanied by data on geographic distribution and habitats. Fowler (1912) compiled the first comprehensive list of all the genera of tiger beetles on the Indian subcontinent. Horn (1915) treated all the genera comprehensively on worldwide perspective. Ribeiro (1921, 1923); Horn (1926) and Heynes-Wood and Dover (1928) brought together much information on the synonymy, type depository, and geographic distribution of the species and subspecies. Horn (1938) provided a means of identifying species and subspecies using illustrations of elytral patterns and Rivalier (1950Rivalier ( , 1958Rivalier ( , 1961Rivalier ( , 1971) developed a classification mainly using male genitalic characters. Mandl (1963) presented the results of expeditions of the Indus River in Kashmir and India. Pearson and Ghorpade (1989) presented biogeographical information for tiger beetles of the Indian subcontinent. A comprehensive review on Cicindela (sensu auctorum) of the entire Indian subcontinent was provided by Acciavatti and Pearson (1989).
There have been very few publications on the Pakistan tiger beetles. Horn (1897), Fleutiaux (1899) and Maindron (1899) presented early collection records from Karachi. Fowler (1912), Chaudhry et al. (1966Chaudhry et al. ( , 1970 provided survey results from the vicinities of Quetta, Kohat, Hazara and Swat. Cassola (1976) presented the results of collecting at Karachi and Lahore. Korell (1984) presented the biogeography data and notes on the morphology of some species collected from western and northern Pakistan. Recently Cassola and Wiesner (2009) reported a new species to science from Baluchistan. The present biogeographic distribution of tiger beetle fauna is first attempt to register all modern taxa of tiger beetles from Pakistan.

Materials and Methods
The data were gathered through tiger beetle specimens housed at the National Insect Museum (NIM), National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad and specimens collected during northern area expedition in June of 2007. Furthermore, specimens that were housed at Pakistan Forest Institute (PFI, Peshawar) and Pakistan Natural History Museum (PMNH, Islamabad) were also examined. Many of the above mentioned museums collection specimens were sent to Fabio Cassola for identification and/or reconfirmation of already identified species.  (Cassola 1976;Acciavatti and Pearson 1989); According to Weisner (unpublished data) this species is also reported from India (Maharashtra).  (Cassola 1976), India Bedi 1973, 1974;Uniyal and Sivakumar 2007 Kzakhstan; Uzbekistan (Acciavatti and Pearson 1989;Dudko andDubatolov 2000-2001).

List of species
Bio-ecological Zone: Palaearctic.
Journal of Insect Science: Vol. 10 | Article 116 Rafi et al.
Bio-ecological Zone: Endemic species of a mainly Palaearctic subgenus.

Bio-ecological Zone: Oriental. Discussion
These results indicate that the tiger beetle fauna of Pakistan includes 50 taxa in 14 genera and 11 subgenera ( Table 1).

Conclusion
These results appear to support the hypothesis advanced by Pearson and Ghorpade (1989) that the tiger beetles fauna on the subcontinent is largely the result of numerous independent contributions from the Ethiopian, the Palaearctic and the Oriental faunas.