Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 56. (Budapest 1964)

Steinmann, H.: The Chrysopa species (Neuroptera) of Hungary

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus 56. PARS ZOOLOGICA 1964. The Chrysopa Species (Neuroptera) of Hungary By H. STEINMANN, Budapest The investigation, becoming more and more extensive in recent years, of the Hungarian Chrysopid fauna set its aim to fulfill a long-felt want. The Neuroptera Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum perished in 1956. The material collected and worked out since that time is very considerable, further augmented by the captures of the extensive network of light traps. In the last two years, for instance, the 42 light traps operating in the country captured 114.000 Chrysopid insects, of which about 12.000 specimens were found valuable to be preserved in the Collection. This exceptionally great material highly assisted in the knowledge of our Hungarian lacewings; their identification solved a number of systematical, faunistical, phenological, etc. problems, and the study of the long series made possible a stricter demarcation of the respective species, subspecies and forms. Except for PONGRÁCZ'S paper, published in 1912, the Hungarian Chrysopid fauna had not been revided. The volume on Neuroptera of the serial work Fauna Hungáriáé is partly in press; in the course of its preparation, seven species were found to be new for Hungary, while two other proved to be-new for science. Accordingly, the number of species shown for the Hungarian fauna rose to 21. Genus: Chrysopa LEACH, 1815 BREWSTER'S Edinb. Encycl., 9, (1) p. 138. Type species: vittata WESMAEL, 1840 On the wings of the species comprising the genus, the subcostal vein is long, joining the costa only on the section beyond the stigma. A part of the species lack cross veins in the stigma and the section beyond it apically. There are, however, series of elongate cells between the sector radii and the posterior margin. On the fore wings, some 10—12 terminal bifurcations reach, between the radius and the median, the posterior margin. The cubital vein of the fore wings runs almost parallel with the subcubital vein, the cubital cell is directed towards the apex, it is triangular and the acuter angle looks toward the apex. In this section, there are two cells between the cubital cell and the base of the wing. The head is ornamented by extraordinarily varying marks, or it can be entirely patternless. On the basis of the markings, their position, or absence (characteristics of considerable usefulness in identifications), the species of the genus have long since been grouped in various kinds of aggregations. Such groupings had been done first by SCHNEIDER (1851), followed by RAMBUR, NAVAS, PONGRÁCZ, etc. One of the main stumbling blocks of these arrangements had always been the phenomenon that the majority of species form a number of varieties, some of which always break through the arbitrary delimitations of specific characters, and seem to have 17 Természettudományi Múzeum Évk. 1964. —