The Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change

is a research museum of the Leibniz Association

Type Catalogues

Lepidoptera & Trichoptera Types at the ZFMK collection

Christina Blume, Claudia Etzbauer, Ulrike Kleikamp, Lena Schnug, Wolfgang Speidel & Dieter Stüning

The Lepidoptera collection of the Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig (ZFMK) is one of the largest collections of this insect order in Germany, containing about 2 million specimens. The number of types is especially high for the " Höne-collection", a collection of Chinese Lepidoptera of outstanding scientific importance. More than 95% of the types in this catalogue are from this collection.
 
The type-catalogue is still under preparation, listing at present not more than about half of the type-specimens represented in the whole Lepidoptera collection.
 
The families treated so far contain 647 holotypes, 37 lectotypes and 3 neotypes. 258 species are represented by syntypes. Numbers of paratypes and paralectotypes have not been counted separately for this list, but are much higher.
 
A much more detailed, printed catalogue version is under preparation.
 
Thirteen families (Arctiidae, Brahmaeidae, Drepanidae, Eupterotidae, Lasiocampidae, Limacodidae, Lymantriidae, Mirinidae, Noctuidae, Notodontidae, Saturniidae, Sphingidae, Zygaenidae) have been treated so far. The Noctuidae type-list is still incomplete, due to extreme richness of type specimens.
 
The type material of the rather small Trichoptera collection is completely listed.
 
Only a few attempts have been made before to publish type-catalogues of the ZFMK Lepidoptera collection. Roesler (1971) published a list of Notodontidae-types, announced as the first part of a series, but no other parts ever appeared (list is included into the catalogue "Noctuoidea II"). Nekrutenko (1998) was the next to continue with a comprehensive and detailed list about the types of the Riodinidae and the Lycaenidae. This was the first and only type-catalogue about a butterfly-family, but the type-material of two additional families (Papilionidae & Pieridae) have been catalogued and photographed in the course of the "GART"-project ("Globales Artenregister Tagfalter", 2000-2002), later continued as GloBIS. This "Global Butterfly Information System" Melchior Pass provides data and images of all butterfly type-specimens housed in German museums and research collections on the world wide web (e. g. science4you ).
 
A list of the Geometridae is under preparation.
 
Many types already have been photographed and catalouged in the "GlobInG"-project (Globales Informationssystem Geometridae, 2002-2005, Zoologische Staatssammlung München, link), which was, like GloBIS, one of the subprojects of the German GBIF subnode Insecta, supported by the German Ministry of Science and Education (BMBF). Pictures are available in the internet ( systax).
Type-material of the Nymphalidae, Hesperiidae and all so-called "Microlepidoptera" still have to be catalogued.
 
The present catalogue is devided into six major groups: 

  • 1) Trichoptera
  • 2) Lepidoptera, Zygaenoidea, including types of the families Limacodidae and Zygaenidae
  • 3) Lepidoptera, Bombycoidea, including Brahmaeidae, Eupterotidae, Lasiocampidae, Mirinidae, Saturniidae and Sphingidae
  • 4) Lepidoptera, Drepanoidea, with the single family Drepanidae (including Drepaninae and Thyatirinae)
  • 5) Lepidoptera, Noctuoidea I, including the families Arctiidae, Lymantriidae and Notodontidae
  • 6) Lepidoptera, Noctuoidea II, family Noctuidae only (the families Pantheidae and Nolidae, separated from the Noctuidae by Kitching & Rawlins, (1999), are here still included within the latter family). This type catalogue is still under construction and will be further completed.

Within the families, the catalogue is arranged alphabetically by species, subspecies or forms, using the original spellings and combinations. Each entry is arranged in the following order: species or subspecies names, original combination, author, year of publication, page number of description, kind of type. The validity of each type was checked by the original description. The following abbreviations were used in the list: HT - holotype, LT - lectotype, NT - neotype, PLT - paralectotype, PT - paratype, ST - syntype. The complete list of original references follows each family.
 
References

  • Roesler, U. (1971): Die Lepidopteren-Typen im Zoologischen Forschungsinstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn. I.Teil: Notodontidae (Bombyces). - Zeitschrift der Arbeitsgemeinschaft österreichischer Entomologen, 23 (2): 37-40.
  • Kitching, I. J. & Rawlins, J. E. (1999): The Noctuoidea. Pp. 355-401. In Kristensen, N. P. (Ed.): Lepidoptera, Moths and Butterflies. 1. Evolution, Systematics, and Biogeography. In Fischer, M. (Ed.): Handbuch der Zoologie 4. Arthropoda: Insecta (35). Berlin, New York, 491 pp.
  • Nekrutenko, Y. P. (1998): A catalogue of the type specimens of Riodinidae and Lycaenidae deposited in the collection of Zoologisches Forschungsinstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig (Bonn). - Nota lepidopterologica 21 (2): 119-148.