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Agrosteomela indica (Hope, 1831)
A red and blue beetle, bigger than a lady beetle found on the road side near the forest.
Thank you very much for the id and the helpful links, I really appreciate this. I spotted this beetle when there was no space in my camera and in the middle of a 16 Km trek. Here I am including a few links that I could get from the net which you might have gone thru. Thank you Michael.
http://threatenedtaxa.org/ZooPrintJourna...
http://blog.udn.com/gustavq/325588
http://baike.baidu.com/view/1815986.htm
It should be Agrosteomela indica (Hope, 1831), based on colour pattern (the underside picture is very helpful here!), and body shape. Especially the relatively narrow shape of the pronotum should exclude Chrysomela populi, which has pretty much the same colouration and is also found in the Himalayan parts of India.
The reference I gave above is very old! A. indica is treated on p. 47, as Paralina indica (Paralina is now synonym of Agrosteomela). Unfortunately, there is not much modern literature to identify Indian chrysomelids, and not much in terms of reliably identified photos on the internet (except for a few common pest species).
Spotted on Aug 14, 2016
Submitted on Sep 12, 2016
