Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 60. (Budapest 1968)

Vojnits, A.: The distribution of the Gnophos-group (Lepidoptera, Geometridae) in Hungary. II

Bükk). The specimens captured in Fót display a strikingly light hue. I should add that the scaling of 67. furvata SCHIFF, is extremely sensitive, and the major part of specimens preserved in collections .is worn and bleached. Gnophos obscurata SCHIFF. A Submediterranean species, distributed in Central Europe (VARGA. 1964); its area extends from Denmark to Sicily and from Andalusia to the Balkan (WEHRLI, 1955). In Hungary, the species was collected in the Transdanubia and the Central Range (from Keszthely to the Eperjes-Tokaj range), further at Győr and in the southern Transdanubia (Kaposvár, Mts. Mecsek: Zobák, Szederkény). It can equally be found on rocky substrates, in wet meadows or marshy fields, peats, and in dry sandy regions. The species is on the wing in July, August, and the first days of September ; we have only a single, rather uncertain, datum for its appearance in June (Kaposvár, 9 June, leg. HÁMORI). The basic colour of 67. obscurata SCHIFF, may fluctuate in hue from nearly white to dark grey. WARNECKE (1929) demonstrated that the basic tinge largely depends on the colour of the substrate. A number of light, dark, and transitional forms have been described as aberrations and varieties; they cannot be delimited regionally. Hungarian specimens, which belong in my opinion to the nominate form, corroborate WEHRLI'S (1929) statements only to a certain extent. Though the animals are dark in the region of the dark, granitic outcrops around Nadap, and light in the whitish limestone and dolomitic areas of the Csiki-hills around Budapest and the Mts. Bükk, both forms have been found in a number of localities (Csopak, Budapest, Fót), whereas dark individuals have been captured on the white limestone cliffs of Pilisvörös vár near Budapest. Gnophos intermedia WHLI. A European — Central European, montane — subalpine ( ?) species (BERGMANN, 1955). The species occurs in the mountainous ranges of Central Europe (Jura, the Alps, the Carpathians), but also at rather low elevations in the Carpathian Basin. In Hungary, it was collected exclusively in low dolomite and limestone hills : in the Buda hüls (Sashegy, Mts. Csiki, Odvashegy), in the Pilis range, (Fehérhegy near Pilisvörösvár), the Mts. Vértes (Csákvár), and the Mts. Bakony (Várpalota). According to BERGMANN (1955) and WOLFSBERGER (1959), only one generation has been observed in the field, the occurrence of the "uncertain" second brood being subject, in their opinion, to favourable weather conditions. Nearly all Hungarian specimens were caught in May, but also a second brood was found to occur in Várpalota (24, 27 August, 1963). The specific group was discussed in details by KOVÁCS (1954). In his paper, he submitted, besides dealing with the nominate form, the description of also three new geographic subspecies. The nominate form, intermedia intermedia WHLI., inhabits the Jura and the Alps. The basic colour is pale yellowish, the pattern indistinct, the distal line more expressed than the proximal one, and this latter indicated only by spots and striguláé. The whitish or yellowish white intermedia benestriata Kov. flies in the NW Carpathians.The grey irroration of the male is so dense that the basic colour breaks only weakly through, the median field is sharply delimited, especially distally, and its border is a contiguous stripe instead of the disconnected spots and striguláé. The basic colour of the race inhabiting the Retyezát Massif, intermedia diószeghyi Kov., is yellowish, the irroration bluish and blackish and instead of being even it merges into narrow blotches. The basic colour is well discernible through the pattern (this latter is rather dissolved), and the median field is bordered by well discernible lines.