Kaszab Zoltán (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 63. (Budapest 1971)

Kovács, L.: Data to the knowledge of Hungarian Macrolepidoptera VI. Data with respect to migrating and spreading species

in the strict sense of the word, as well as about one-quarter of the Northwestern Transdanubia. The settling of L. mellinata in this region appears to be permanent. Four light traps submit specimens every year, as well as from Pápa and Szentendre. The rapid advance of the species hinges obviously on human horticultural activities. Our indigenous currant species belonging to the natural plant associations occur in only 4 places in Hungary, and their localities of occurrence are generally far removed from one another. On the other hand, the cultivated species are grown in yearly more expanding sites and these currant cultures will before long become so densely spaced that to overcome the distance separating them will cause no special difficulty even for individuals of species with a weaker flight. The gaining of ground by mellinata is a manifest example of man's "paving the way", by plants drawn into culture, of the routes of advance of insect species living on these plants. No data have as yet been registered on home damages wrought by this species. P. TALLÓS collected its larvae already several times on currant, and also found imagos on the leaves. It is worthy of note that in 1970 geometrid moths were very numerous in Ribes cultures at Szentendre, and they even caused complete defoliation. Indubitably, the great majority belonged to A. grossulariata, and all three of our lepidopterous species living on currant species were captured on light, and in unusually high individual numbers (L. mellinata, A. grossulariata, and Th. wauaria ). The other, eastern branch of the advance starting from the Marchfeld also appears to have reached our frontiers. In the higher elevations of the Mts. Börzsöny, A. VOJNITS captured a male specimen on 17 July, 1965. In the Transdanubia, the eastern advance had not yet reached a point situated so far in the east, whilst Wichra (HRUBY, 1964) caught it also earlier at Párkánynána, immediately north of the Danube and our border. There is no datum so far whether the species has further advanced in the Northern Central Bange. A consideration of the available data implies that the adaptation of mellinata to cultivated currants happened already before the commencement of its spreading, still in the Marchfeld. When it arrived behind our borders, it already possessed the ability to utilize culture conditions for settling and spreading. In the abiotic conditions, and especially in climatic circumstances, there are naturally considerable differences between the starting point of its spreading and the easternmost sites of the occupied territory. As far as the problem of overcoming difficulties arising from this is concerned, no more can at this time be said than that we are dealing with a species of good ecological valence. 2. Plagodis dolabraria L. The species occures everywhere in the woods of the Transdanubia and the Northern Central Range. In the Great Plains, it was found only in some peripheral localities, in the north at Kompolt, in the northwest at Hodász and Bátorliget, in the southeast at Tarhos and Gerla, and in the west at Ócsa, Tass, and Peszér. As the occurrences at the periphery of the area are known since long, a new occurrence of the species, registered by the light trap at Kunfehértó, called immediate attention to it. This new datum is interesting also by the fact that the 3 localities in the western Plains are removed at most by 20 km. from the Danube, whereas Kunfehértó is at least 40 km. away from it.