Inventory of Membracidae (Insecta: Homoptera) Type Specimens in the Collections of Southern Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Chennai

The insects included under the family Membracidae are small-size and phytophagous belonging to the auchenorrhynchous Homoptera. They are easily distinguished by the presence of horn-like processes of the pronotum, very often assuming curious bizarre shapes in different species have earned the name “horn bugs” or “cow bugs”. Although endowed with powers of flight, they prefer to hop about when disturbed and this habit has earned them the popular name “tree hoppers” (Ananthasubramanian, 1996). The membracids Type collections at the Southern Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Chennai, is very small. Ananthasubramanian and Ananthakrishnan (1975a, b), Ananthasubramanian (1978, 1980a, b, 1982, 1984, 1996), Thirumalai and Ananthasubramanian (1981, 1985), Ananthasubramanian and Ghosh (1987a, b) described many species of Indian membracids, but only few type specimens are deposited in the National Zoological Collections of Southern Regional Centre, Chennai. The present work is to focus on documenting the available information’s on holdings of type specimens of membracids at SRC, ZSI. The type specimens are listed by generic followed by original species name, author, type category, type locality, geographical coordinates, date of collection, collector name, and name of the journal and status of preservation. In addition to that the digital images of type specimens and original labels are also provided. The digital images of the type specimens were taken by using the Leica M205A Stereozoom Microscope.