KOLKATA: India is home to 191 species of cockroaches, and 119 of these (more than 60%) are entirely endemic to the country, according to a recent publication by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI). Endemism represents an ecological state where a species is native strictly to a single, highly defined geographical location.
The publication, titled "DNA barcodes and species delimitation reveal overlooked diversity in Indian cockroaches (Blattodea)", reveals that India's hidden cockroach diversity is far greater than previously recognized.
Distributed across 74 genera, 126 of these species have defined type localities within the country. However, less than 20% of this diversity was previously represented by genetic data in public databases, a gap that has historically limited global phylogenetic tracking.
To address this, scientists from the ZSI and Prof Ramkrishna More College published a study in the journal Zootaxa, developing the first and largest DNA barcode reference library for the cockroaches of peninsular India. DNA barcoding utilizes short, standardized DNA sequences to achieve rapid and highly accurate species identification, similar to a supermarket scanner.