O. Merkl szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 66. (Budapest, 2005)

Species grouping of several genera and subgenera of Coniopterygidae (Neuroptera) GY. SZIRAKI Department of Zoology, Hungarian Natural History Museum H-1088 Budapest, Baross utca 13, Hungary. E-mail: sziraki@zoo.zoo.nhmus.hu Abstract - Species groups of the coniopterygid genera Aleuropteryx LOW, 1855, Heteroconis ENDERLEIN, 1905, Nimboa N

AVAS, 1925, Semidalis ENDERLEIN, 1905, and subgenera Coniopteryx CURTIS, 1834 s. str. and Xeroconiopteryx MEINANDER, 1972 are discussed, and identification keys are given for them. A new grouping is proposed for the genus Semidalis and the subgenera Coniopteryx and Xeroconiopteryx. With 102 figures. Key words - Aleuropteryx, Coniopteryx, Heteroconis, identification keys, Nimboa, Semidalis, species groups, Xeroconiopteryx. INTRODUCTION Natural groups of species without taxonomic rank were given in some larger coniopterygid genera (Aleuropteryx LOW, 1855, Heteroconis ENDERLEIN, 1905, Nimboa NAVAS, 1925 and Semidalis ENDERLEIN, 1905) and subgenera (Coniopteryx CURTIS, 1834 s. str. and Xeroconiopteryx MEINANDER, 1972) in the first modern monograph of the family Coniopterygidae (MEINANDER 1972). It was completed later (MEINANDER 1981) in the case of the genus Coniopteryx. In the last three decades the number of the described dustywing species increased more than two times in these taxa. Many of the newly described species were not placed in the known species groups, or it happened only tentatively. MEINANDER (1990) in his list followed the earlier grouping, however mostly without mentioning the definitive name of the groups. In the recent work of ASPÖCK et al. (2001) all the species of the above mentioned genus-group taxa known from the western parts of the Palaearctic Region were placed in the species groups of MEINANDER. However, many of these groups have already rather low value in the practice of the tax-