Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 6. (Budapest 1955)

Kovács, L.: The Macrolepidoptera characteristic to our sandy district

possibly live in related biotops of other substrates ; in the absence of such, however, they are limited to the sand. An indication of this fact is that 5. sylvestraria lives in Callunetums north of Hungary, as also in the Uzsa Reservation in our country ; but to the east, where there is no heather on the Plains, it inhabits the Festucetum vaginatae and F. sulcatae associations of sandy areas. Again, there are some species among those listed above which are tied predominantly by their food plants, in a more or less strict sense, to sandy districts. These are H. compta (Dianthus serotinus), Ch. scopariae (Artemisia scoparia), E. vernana (Populus alba). The food plant of Ch. scopariae thrives solely on sand in our country, no examination can therefore be made in what degree this species adapted itself to sand ; the other two, concerning their food plants, may also have been relegated to the former group. H. leucographa is linked probably also to soda soils by its food plant. L. alciphron, according to the observations of Urbahn, also prefers dryness, and this circumstance may, among other things, have some role in its frequent occurrence on the dry and warm sand of the Plains. These species, on whose connection with sand some light can be shed by home and gbroad observations, are predominantly Euro-Siberian and European faunal elements, to use the habitual denominations. The majority of them range to much higher latitudes than ours, and will reach usually but the northern part of the Mediterranean ; even there they are represented by possibly some special form (L. alciphron). We may justly suppose on the ground of their general dispersal that their heat requirements are moderate, and that they are possibly eurytherm species. In the line of the species represented by peculiar varieties in our sandy districts, also Euro-Siberian and European faunal elements dominate. From the fact that they are represented by distinct forms on the sandy areas of the Plains, we may safely infer that ecological factors found nowhere else come into play in these districts. Of the five forms developed to all appearances in this area, two are still the endemisms of the sand of the Plains (Melitaea ssp. vividicolore, Orgya var. intermedia) ; whilst the other three had, locally, more or less invaded the surroundig districts (Polia var. postaliena, Aporophyla var. sodata, Zygaena var. pusztae). The majority of our psammophilous species consist of species of whose connection with sand I had not found any data in literature as yet. Strikingly, they are mainly Pontic and Ponto-Mediterranean faunal elements, with even a Mediterranean species amongst them. Most of them are, as inferred from their range, species of an increased heat demand ; a significant number of them will not be found at higher latitudes than ours, — and the others but locally. So M. lupinus, E. seliginis, S. dianthi, H. silènes, E. ustula, Ch. nubigera, P. pannonica, E. indigenata, S. sericeata, B. umbraria, A. zelleri reach the northern limit of their range in Hungary. Further, H. cognatus, C. puer per a

t E. undulella arrive at their northernmost limits in our country and also at somewhat further north (Vienna). Ch. lavaterae had been found also higher up in the north, but in one or two places only. Argynnis ssp. laranda, a form described from the northeastern shores of the Adriatic Sea and of a southern character, belongs also here, together maybe with the Euro-Sibirian E. terrea, tending towards the south in Europe. The heat requirements of these species with a pronouncedly southern character are also expressed in the regard of their distribution and biotops in Hungary. The great majority of them had been found in the warmest points