S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 56. (Budapest, 1995)

A general survey of the Geometridae (Lepidoptera) fauna of the Checheno-Ingoush Republic (Russia, NE Caucasus) Gy. M. László and B. Herczig A general survey of the Geometridae fauna of the Checheno-Ingoush Republic (Russia, NE Caucasus) (Lepidoptera) - The first faunistical report about the Geometridae fauna (except the tribe Eupitheciini) of the Checheno-Ingoush Republic containing an annotated, systematic list of 162 species is given. INTRODUCTION Within the framework between the Tolstoy State University and the Plant Health and Soil Conservation Station, County Komárom-Esztergom, Tata, established in 1988, four joint expeditions had been organized to the Checheno-Ingoush Republic (formerly Checheno-Ingoush ASSR), in the north-eastern territories of the Caucasus between 1988-1991. The aims of these expeditions were to study the migration of various insect groups through the passes and N-S valleys of the northern Caucasus (Herczig et al. 1989, 1990a, 1993, Herczig and Mészáros 1993) and the faunistical exploration of the area under discussion. As a result of the four expeditions, about 25 000 Macrolepidoptera specimens were collected which are deposited, besides the collections of the collectors, in the Lepidoptera collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest. A part of the faunistical and taxonomic results (the elaboration of the Noctuidae material) was published by Herczig et al. (1990b, 1991); six new Noctuidae taxa have already described as new for science (Ronkay 1990, Varga and Ronkay 1991, Herczig et al. 1991) and some further taxa are prepared for description. A considerable Neuroptera and Trichoptera material was also collected which is under the treatment of L. Ábrahám (Neuroptera) and S. Nógrádi and A. Uherkovich (Trichoptera). A preliminary report on the caddisfly fauna of the Caucasus has already been published (Nógrádi and Uherkovich 1992). The study of the Geometridae material was started only recently. The present paper contains the data of the Geometridae species collected by the four expeditions with the exception of the tribe Eupitheciini. Our knowledge about the Geometridae fauna of the Caucasus is rather heterogeneous, as the southern-south-eastern parts are relatively well explored. A series of contributions published (Vardikian and Rjabov 1964, Vardikian 1957, 1964, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1976) and a comprehensive summary, the atlas of the genitalia of the geometrids of Armenia, published by Vardikian (1985), which served as an important basis in