21| Biolife | 2015 | Vol 3 | Issue 1 B I O L I F E R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E Ecology and Ethology of Crane fly Tipula paludosa Meigen (Tipulidae: Diptera) from Kolhapur region, India Desai A.S 1 ., Khamkar A.G 2 and T.V. Sathe 3* 1-3 Department of Zoology, Shivaji University, Kolhapur 416 004, India. E-mail: profdrtvsathe@rediffmail.com ABSTRACT The crane fly Tipula paludosa Meigen (Tipulidae : Diptera) is an important food for various insects, fishes and birds. However, it is destructive to lawns. Therefore, its seasonal abundance, natural enemies, mating and oviposition behaviours have been studied. Kolhapur is bounded to Western Ghats and receives on an average of 1100 mm rainfall. The occurrence of adult crane fly was noted from October to April and reached to peak in February. Mating occurred very immediately after adult emergence from pupae and displayed chain a behaviours, viz., attraction, recognition, orientation, wing fanning, mounting, copulation, tail to tail end position and post copulatory grooming. Oviposition behaviours comprised recognition and examination of oviposition site and surface respectively, insertion of abdomen in soil and actual oviposition. The adult crane flies were predated by dragon flies Bradinopyga sp. and Crocothemis sp., the larvae were predated by carabid beetles and parasitized by nematode Agamermis sp. Key words : Crane fly, Ecology, Ethology, Kolhapur region, India. INTRODUCTION In the natural population process mating plays a very crucial role for control of pest insects. In certain insects mating and fertilization is required for production of a viable offsprings to produce daughters. Few detailed studies on courtship and mating behaviour are exist (Sathe & Margaj, 2001; Sathe et al., 2014). The review of literature indicates that little is known about mating behaviour in the crane flies. Crane flies are commonly known as "mosquito hawks" or "daddy long legs” which belong to Tipulidae family of order Diptera. These crane flies are small (2 mm) to large (40 mm) sized which serve as source of food for fishes, amphibians, birds, mammals and arthropods including wasps (Tuft and Beggs, 1995). About 17645 species of Tipuloidea are known from the world, out of which about 1500 species and subspecies are reported from India (Bhagat, 2014). Crane flies are mistaken as large mosquitoes but their nuisance value to man is almost negligible. However, some species acts as pests. Being the food for pisces, amphibians and birds, their population should be maintained coinciding their above preys. Therefore, for obtaining more and more females mating is essential. In past, crane flies have been studied by Reunine (1917), Cuthbertson, (1929), Thomas (1946), Alexander (1950, 1953, 1964), White (1951), Laughlin (1967), Hadley (1969), Campbell et al. (1974), Alder & Alder (1991), Naskar et al. (2013), Bhagat (2014) etc. attempted the studies related to biodiversity, ecology and ethology of crane flies. MATERIALS AND METHODS Kolhapur district of India is situated between 15 o to 17 o North latitude and 23 o to 74 o East longitude with an average rain fall 1100 mm AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY & LIFE SCIENCES 3(1):21-25 ISSN (online): 2320-4257 www.biolifejournal.com