A Systematic Catalogue of the Zygaenidae (Lepidoptera: Zygaenidae)

The Zygaeninae, commonly known as Burnets, are diurnal, mostly aposematic moths that occur in the Palaearctic, Oriental and Afrotropical regions.

Although the sub-family consists of only 116 extant species that are currently recognized as valid, their frequent and sometimes extreme individual variation, their extensive geographical variation, and their fascinating biology, have long attracted the attention of both the professional and amateur lepidopterist.

This catalogue includes all nominal taxa at subspecies level and aims to update the 1967 catalogue by Reiss & Tremewan (which dealt only with the genus Zygaena), to reflect modern concepts of systematics at the generic, species and subspecies levels, and to bring stability into the nomenclature.

For example, the biospecies concept originally formulated by Mayr has been applied at species level, while every attempt has been made to adhere to his concept of subspecies.

The author, date and literature reference of each nominal taxon are cited together with full synonymies.

The type-localities of taxa at species and subspecies level are provided, as well as the range of each species and the distribution of each subspecies. Larval host-plants are listed under each species and are also indexed by family and species, the Zygaeninae species being listed under the respective plants on which the larvae feed.

Additional literature references are provided under each species heading, and are annotated with the same key words that were used in "A Bibliography of the Zygaeninae (Lepidoptera: Zygaenidae)" (Tremewan, 1988).

Moreover, a supplement to the bibliography is appended after the systematic section, the references again being indexed under the key words.

The work concludes with an index of the valid nominal taxa and their synonyms.

As well as being available separately, the catalogue and the bibliography are also published as a set.