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This monograph is the tenth to be published 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 few years as regularly as the vagaries of life
permit. The parts printed and dates of publication so far are shown on the back
cover.
The author is in frequent communication with the Heterocera Sumatrana
team organised by Dr E.W. Diehl, and the two series of publications complement
each other to provide, for the first time, fully illustrated reference works to
a large proportion of the very rich South East Asian and Sundanian
macrolepidoptera fauna. In turn, they complement a Japanese series on The
Moths of Nepal, published as supplements to the journal Tinea.
The series is based on a large amount of recently collected material
that gives some indication of habitat preference for the species concerned. Data
on early stages and host-plants are being 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 for his taxonomic appendix to H.S.
Barlow's 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 Natural History Museum, London, and other European Museums. 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 this part, the
many species previously placed in the S. American genus Epiplema are
mostly distributed amongst more apposite genera, with description of a few new
ones.
As the series is completed it may be revised, indexed and reissued in
three or four bound volumes as a full reference work. A field guide
incorporating the colour plates is also being considered.
London
1998 J.D.H.
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