Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 79. (Budapest 1987)
Ronkay, L.: Taxonomic and zoogeographical studies on the subfamily Plusiinae (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae). The Palaeotropical, Oriental and Nearctic material of the Zoological Museum, Copenhagen
ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus 79. Budapest, 1987 p. 167-178. Taxonomic and zoogeographical studies on the subfamily Plusiinae (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae). The Palaeotropical, Oriental and Nearctic material of the Zoological Museum, Copenhagen by L. RONKAY, Budapest L. RONKAY: Taxonomic and zoogeographical studies on the subfamily Plusiinae (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae). The Palaeotropical, Oriental and Nearctic material of the Zoological Museum, Copenhagen. — Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 1987 79: 167-178. Abstract — Three new genera, Anaplusia gen. n., Extremoplusia gen. n. and Scriptoplusia gen. n. and one new species, Scriptoplusia noona sp. n. are described and an annotated list of 50 species from N America, Africa and the Oriental Region is given. With 26 figures and 1 photoplate. In 1986Ihad t the opportunity to study the Palaeotropical, Nearctic and Indo-Australian Plusiinae material of the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. During the course of this work I could study in details some species which had not been relagated to any described genera. These studies, based on the external and genitalic morphology including the characteristics of the vesica, have shown the necessity to erect three new genera for these taxa. — The whole material contains specimens of 50 species, one of them is new for science and there are several previously unknown distribution records of the species. I would like to express my thanks to Dr. Ole Karsholt (Zool. Mus., Copenhagen) for his extensive help in this work and also to Dr. L. Gozmány (Budapest) for his useful advice. 1. DESCRIPriON OF THE NEW TAXA It is an interesting fact that there are some species, distributed over the Eastern-Southeastern border of the Palaearctic Region to Indonesia, Australia and New Guinea, which appear to be remote from any well-known genera of the Eastern Tropical Plusiinae. These species inhabit montane forest and rain-forest habitats of their range. In this "group" each species displays a unique composition of characteristic features, sometimes they seem a special mixture of modified characters present in other genera. These species are mentioned in the recent works either as monotypic genera — Loboplusia ROEPKE, 1941, Zonoplusia CHOU et Lu, 1979 — or as "Plasia s.l." (see DUFAY 1973, 1974); with one of them being relegated to the genus Trichoplusia MCDUNNOUGH, 1944 (nigriluna WALKER, see SUGI et al. 1982). Studies of three of these species, based mostly on the investigation of the structure of the vesica, show their distinctness and justify the erection of distinct genera to accomodate them. At present one cannot unequivocally decide whether they represent the only known members of genera produced by special — and diverse — "cul-de-sacs" of development from other tropical genera (the discussed genera contain only one or two species) or they are the ancient representatives of the original Eastern Tropical Plusiine fauna — beside the genera Chrysodeixis HÜBNER, 1821 and Acanthoplusia DUFAY, 1970 — and so the appearence of the other genera in the recent fauna of the Indo-Australian Region is only a result of a later
