BIODIVERSITY OF Caelifera (ORTHOPTERA) IN CHOLISTAN DESERT, PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

The purpose of present study was to investigate the biodiversity of Caelifera from Cholistan desert of Punjab, Pakistan. The present research work was carried out from June 2019 to December 2019. During the present study, 1683 samples were collected from Cholistan desert track (Derawar Fort, Head Fareed, Islam garh Fort and Manthar Bangla) Punjab, Pakistan. Among the collected samples, 1586 were females and 97 were males. The number of samples collected from Derawar Fort, Islam Garh Fort, Head Fareed and Manthar Bangla were 469,377,459,378 respectively. Th relative %gae abundance of samples from selected areas were 27.84%(Derawar Fort), 22.40% (Islam Garh Fort), 27.27% (Head Fareed) and 23.83% (Manthar Bangla). Among collected samples, 7 species were identified on the basis of their morphological relationship with Caelifera species, these include Aiolopus thalassinus thalassinus (Fabricius, 1781), Sphingonotus savignyi Saussure, 1884, Peokilocerus pictus (Fabricius, 1775), Heteracrislittoralis(Rambur, 1838), Acrida exaltata (Walker, 1859),Oxya hyla hyla and Diabolocatantops innotabilis (Walker, 1870). The relative male and female individual abundance among species was 95.95% female, 4.04% male in Peokilocerus pictus,95.89% female and 4.1 male in Oxya hyla hyla, 93.9% female and 6.09 male in Sphingonotus savignyi, 93.75% female and 6.25% male in Heteracris littoralis, 95.05% female and 4.94 male in Aiolopus thalassinus thalassinus, 92.88% female and 7.11% male in Diabolocatantops innotabilis, 91.47% female and 8.5 % male in Acrida exaltata. The specimens was collected from sandy and sub-sandy tracks of Cholistan Desert, different crops nearby desert areas, herbs and bushes along the desert and field line.