Lestes patricia, Fraser, 1924

Joshi, Shantanu, Sawant, Dattaprasad, Dalvi, Akshay, Koli, Yogesh, Haneef, Muhammed, Sanap, Rajesh & Kunte, Krushnamegh, 2023, New records of Lestes nigriceps Fraser, 1924 (Odonata: Lestidae) from Maharashtra, India, with notes on L. patricia Fraser, 1924 and an updated key to Lestes of the Western Ghats, India, International Journal of Odonatology 26, pp. 132-144 : 141

Recent records of L. patricia Fraser, 1924 , and the taxonomic status of L. p. taamrpatti Bhakare, Bhoite & Pawar, 2020

Lestes patricia was described based on a single male collected at Kodagu (= Coorg), Karnataka, India ( Fraser, 1924) ( Fig. 7). This species was recently reported from Urmodi Dam, Maharashtra, India, by Bhakare et al. (2020), which represents the first confirmed record afer the original species description. These specimens were described as a new subspecies, Lestes patricia taamrpatti Bhakare, Bhoite & Pawar, 2020 , based on mi- nor differences. They mention that in this subspecies “Frons [are] black (azure blue vide Fraser [1924])”, but Figure 5 ( Bhakare et al., 2020: 89) shows that the ante- frons in their specimens are indeed blue. In the original description, Fraser (1924: 486) stated that “A middorsal stripe of matt black with straight borders, extending on each side to about half way to the humeral stripe”. However, a close examination of the holotype shows a middorsal coppery red area that is enclosed by narrow dark olivaceous stripes ( Figs 7a–c), exactly as described by Bhakare et al. (2020).

With regards to the caudal appendages, Bhakare et al. (2020) state “Paraprocts very short, not extending to the end of expanded part of cerci (extending nearly to the end of expanded part vide Fraser [1924] [ Fig. 7e]).”

The use of long paraprocts and number of crossveins as diagnostic characters in L. patricia were most likely based on the key to the species of Lestes provided by Kosterin (2019). However, a year later the same author ( Kosterin, 2020) published an errata to the keys that re- moved the relevance of both characters (with respect to L. patricia , see the same photos of its holotype that are provided here in Fig. 7), rendering the characters used by Bhakare et al. (2020) to substantiate their subspecies based on literature irrelevant. The males illustrated in Bhakare et al. (2020) indeed agree very well with the images of the holotype of L. patricia ( Fig. 7).

Since the type locality and the locality surveyed by Bhakare et al. (2020) are part of the Western Ghats mountain region there is no geographical support for recognizing a different subspecies either. Thus there are no conclusive characters to warrant a separate subspecies status for the population reported by Bhakare et al. (2020). We therefore find Lestes patricia taamrpatti to be a junior synonym of Lestes patricia ( Lestes patricia = Lestes patricia taamrpattii syn. nov.).