Uherkovich Ákos: A Villányi-hegység botanikai és zoológiai alapfelmérése (Dunántúli Dolgozatok Természettudományi Sorozat 10., 2000)

Nagy, Antal & Nagy, Barnabás : The Orthoptera of the Villány Hilss (South Hungary) - A Villányi-hegység egyenesszárnyú (Orthoptera) faunája

NAGY, A. & NAGY, В.: THE ORTHOPTERA FAUNA OF THE VILLANY HILLS (S HUNGARY) Orthoptera assemblages The Orthoptera assemblages of different habitats are hardly determinated on account of the difference between the climate of consecutive years and the quick phenological changes. The low number of captured individuals makes the quantitative analyses false. Contrary to these difficulties Orthoptera assemblages can be established on the basis of the available data and field experiences (Table 2). The Orthoptera assemblages of the different habitats changed during the time of investigation. Namely, some species (e.g. Acrotylus insubricus, Acrida ungarica, Oedealus decorus) became rare or seems to be totally disappeared in the latter years. Phenology We could not give a complete picture of the phenology of all species occurring in the Villány Hills, however an approximate sketch is possible. The most of the species can be divided into three groups: species overwintering as imagoes, early species and late species (Table 3). Early species hatch out in March and April, while late species hatche in May and June. Relation to the surrounding mountainy areas The investigation of the Orthoptera fauna of the surrounding regions of the Villány Hills are far not complete. Disregard the Drávaszög, where mesohygrophylous and hygrophylous elements play important role (PONGRÁCZ 1944), an obvious comparison can be made between the Villány Hills and the Mecsek Mountains as RÁCZ & VARGA (1985) made it in their paper. On the basis of the Orthoptera assemblages they demonstrated the separation of the Villány Hills. Until now not a single distinctive species was found characteristic to the Villány Hills but there are some for the Mecsek Mountains (Table 4). Relation to the nature conservation In spite of the relatively low number of Orthoptera species in this area, there are numerous zoogeographically valuable elements among them. The number of law protected Orthoptera species in Hungary is 24. Seven of them occur in the Villány Hills which takes 29.2% of all the protected grasshoppers and 15.6% of the Orthoptera fauna of the Hills. These species are the followings: Ensiferans: Isophya modestior, Isophya modesta, Isophya brevipennis, Poecilimon fussi, Saga pedo and Caeliferans: Ailopus strepens, Acrida ungarica. Further zoogeographically valuable Mediterranean, Ponto-Mediterranean and/or Balearic species - which are not penetrating to northward from the Carpathian Basin - are: Ensiferans: Pachytrachys gracilis, Rhacocleis germanica and Caeliferans: Pezotettix giornae Oedealus decorus, Acrotylus insubricus. The Szársomlyó is a conservation area since 1944, mainly because of the exclusive occurence of the Colchicum hungaricum (Janka) in Hungary. The establishment of other conservation areas (the Tenkes and the Csukma hills) are going on.