2024 Vol. 30 No.2 PP 380-382

https://doi.org/10.33451/florafauna.v30i2pp380-382

New findings of Galeodes agilis from Semi-arid region of Alirajpur, M.P., India

Bharat Pandram¹, ^*Amit Kumar Devaliya², Meeru Baghel³ and Pooja Thakur⁴ Solifugae is an arachnid found in arid and semi-arid areas and belongs to the phylum Arthropoda, class Arachnida9. Solifugae is also known as a relative of spiders or scorpion. Only a few of their species are reported in Madhya Pradesh, India1. In this series, we found another species of Galeodidae family, i.e. Galeodes agilis, which is found in Alirajpur. Many of its names are according to their physical form and function like sun spider or wind spider and local of tribal people of Alirajpur called Kukkad Ichhu. In appearance it looks like a mixture of spiders and bichhu. Compound eyes are found in them, strong jaws called chelicerae are found on the large-sized head of Solifugae, their pedipalps are long and this is new findings in this area as well.It helped in maintaining the terrestrial ecosystem of some areas of Madhya Pradesh like Jhabua, Alirajpur, Dhar, Manawar etc. Properly they are not reported and their number are less according to the surveys of the areas during summer of 2023. Kukad Icchhu are distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics, mainly in arid, semi-arid or other warm environment.

KEY WORDS : Alirajpur, Galeodes agilis, Solifugae.