Kononenko V.S., Bro. Amnuay Pinratana
Год: 2013
I am very pleased to present to interested readers this Part Two of Volume 3 of the “Moths of Thailand” dealing with the fauna of Noctuidae (sensu lato) of Thailand. This volume of the series upgrades continues and extends the issue “Moths of Thailand” Part 1. Nine years have elapsed since the first part was published. During this period, the higher classification of the superfamily Noctuoidea has undergone numerous dramatic changes. For example, the family Noctuidae as it was accepted before 2005 was divided into four families (Erebidae, Euteliidae, Nolidae and Noctuidae) and the families Arctiidae and Lymantriidae were placed in the Erebidae as subfamilies. Thus, the title of this book is “Noctuoidea. Addendum to vol. 3, part 1, Families Erebidae, Euteliidae, Nolidae, Noctuidae and Checklist”. During this period, many publications dealing with the Noctuoidea fauna of the South East Asia have been published. Further, higher taxa of Noctuoidea have been revised on worldwide level and revisions of some Paleaearctic and oriental taxa with numerous descriptions of new taxa from East Asia including Thailand have been published. This book would not have been possible without completion of the series “Moths of Borneo” (Holloway 1985,1988,1989,2003,2005,2008,2009) and publication of the Checklist of Borneo fauna arranged in modern classification system (Holloway 2011). Recent intensive collecting efforts resulted in the addition of numerous taxa for this work. Moreover, Vladimir Kononenko has had the opportunity to examine and photograph additional material from European and Thailand museums and also private collections in Germany, Denmark and Finland. This book contains numerous additions to the families (subfamilies) treated in the “Moths of Thailand” Part 1 (part of Erebidae, Euteliidae and part of Noctuidae: Plusiinae, Pantheinae, Acronictinae and Agaristinae), whole family Nolidae and the new data for the subfamilies of Erebidae and Noctuidae not treated in Part 1. The subfamilies Arctiinae and Lymantriinae of Erebidae are not included in the book. The Arctiinae of Thailand (formerly Arctiidae) has been published by Cerny & Pinratana (2009). Although Noctuoidea is a cosmopolitan superfamily, the tropics, particularly the oriental region (including Thailand), is the home of the highest diversity of these moths. The complete Thailand faunistic Checklists of Erebidae, Euteliidae, Nolidae and Noctuidae includes over 2138 species! Of this superfamily, about 1,550 species from Thailand are treated in the present book, among them 843 are firstly reported for Thailand. Over 2650 specimens of Noctuoidea of Thai fauna are illustrated in 55 high resolution colour plates. The compound plates and layout of this book were made by Vladimir Kononenko, who has great experience in computer art graphic work and illustration of entomological books. Many lepidopterists and other entomologists have supported this study and their help was ex tremely valuable during this long and exhaustive work. We are very grateful for them and they are enumerated in the “Acknowledgements”. Naturally, I am very happy to present to you, dear readers this beautiful book with 55 colour plates. Undoubtedly, this book is very important not only for Thailand, but it also has international value. With great pleasure I publish this book to encourage those who are interested in collecting and studying these interesting moths. It is my hope that this Part Two of Volume 3 of the Moths of Thailand will help students, researchers and others, to take more interest in and to study insects in general and Noctuoidea in particular in Thailand and the Oriental region.
