S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 43/1. (Budapest, 1982)

FOLIA ENTOMOLOGICA HUNGARICA ROVARTANI KÖZLEMÉNYEK XLIII. 1. 1982 p. 137-145 Plusiinae (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) from Korea By L. RONKAY (Received November 25, 1981) Abstract: The data of 582 specimens representing 29 species; some taxonomic and zoogeographic remarks; six species new to the fauna of Korea. The history of lepidopterological investigations in Korea was expounded in detail by PARK (1976), showing that from the end of the last century up to the present a relatively high number of authors have submitted data or descriptions of new species from the peninsula - yet invariably on smaller materials (to point out only the more significant authors, and that without the claim of completeness: BUTLER 1882, 1883; LEECH 1887-1901, a number of contributions; MATSUMURA 1926, 1927; BRYK 1947, 1949). A comprehensive list concerning the fauna of the northern part of Korea was published recently (TSHU TONG-LJUL 1969), the faunistic novelties discussed herein are given with reference to the data of these papers and of the large comprehensive works. Between 1970 and 1980, seven expeditions of our Museum made zoological collections in the Korean Democratic People's Republic; six of the respective materials contained species belonging in the subfamily Plusiinae, namely 582 exemplars of 29 species, six of which proved to be new to the fauna of Korea. The lists containing the locality data of the respective expeditions have all been published, with exception of the last one; since in a given year only one expedition had been in the field, the names of the collectors will be omitted from among the locality data of the species, instead, and for the sake of an easier review, the names of the research workers per respective year are given below: 1971 S. HORVATOVICH and J. PAPP; 1975 J. PAPP and A. VOJNITS; 1977 O. DELY and Á. D.-DRASKOVITS; 1978 A. VOJNITS and L. ZOMBORI; 1979 H. STEINMANN and T. VÁSÁRHELYI; 1980 L. FORRÓ and Gy. TOPÁL. It should be pointed out that the expeditions followed largely the same route, but the transliteration of the localities is usually different; to solve this problem, VOJNITS and ZOMBORI (1979) published the standardized names according to English orthography. The present paper submits the data as given on the locality labels. From the taxonomic point of view, the subfamily Plusiinae is a problematic group. Owing to the variability of the species and their often peculiar distribution patterns a number of synonymies became known - and surely some are still to be expected - while many new species have been described mainly from the Palaeotropic and Oriental regions. Uncertainties are encountered also at the generic level, e.g. the genus Plusia (Phytometra) sensu lato has been split only recently (KOSTROWICKI 1961; DUFAY 1968, 1970a, 1970b, 1970c; ICHINOSE 1962, 1973; EICHLIN et CUNNINGHAM 1978), and the taxonomic rank of the resulting categories is still subject to deliberations. I have attempted here to synthesize these works and the results of my own investigations . * Zoological collectings by the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Korea, No. 63.