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This monograph is the first in a series planned on the Bornean 'macrolepidoptera'
superfamilies Cossoidea, Zygaenoidea, Bombycoidea (including Sphingidae),
Noctuoidea, Geometroidea, Calliduloidea and Castnioidea. Parts will appear over
the next five or so years as regularly as the vagaries of life permit.
The author is in frequent communication with the Heterocera Sumatrana team
organised by Dr E.W. Diehl and the two series of publications should complement
each other to provide, for the first time, fully illustrated reference work to a
large proportion of the very rich South East Asian and Sundanian
macrolepidoptera fauna.
The series will be based on a large amount of recently collected material that
will give some indication of habitat preference for the species concerned. Data
on early stages and host-plants will be collated and reviewed.
Literature on the Oriental fauna is voluminous but often without illustrations
and with poor, superficial descriptions. Synonymy presented often proves to be
erroneous. Generic placements and higher classification are often found to be
similarly superficial on close examination. This problem is dealt with more
fully in the author's introduction to his Taxonomic Appendix to H.S. Barlow's An
Introduction to the Moths of South East Asia. This series on the moths of
Borneo is seen as an opportunity to establish a fresh, more stable foundation
for the study of the Indo-Australian tropical macrolepidoptera, an opportunity
facilitated by access to the wealth of historical material held in the British
Museum (Natural History) and other European Museum. The centralisation of this
material is a boon for the comparative studies necessary to provide the stable
foundation just referred to.
The reader must be prepared, however, for major changes to previously accepted
generic, or even subfamilial placements. For example, in work in preparation on
the euteliine Noctuidae, few of the thirty or more species currently placed in Eutelia
and Phlegetonia in South East Asia will remain there, and all Bornean
species will be transferred to other genera.
As the series is completed it may be revised and reissued in three or four bound
volumes as a complete reference work. A field guide incorporating the colour
plates it also being considered
London,
1983
Hard copy is available from:
Southene Sdn Bhd
P.O Box 10139
50704 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Phone : +603 4022 2653
Fax : +603 4022 2267
Email : hsbar@pc.jaring.my
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