Par Xavier Mérit
Under the lead of Dr. Laszlo Ronkay from the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Department of Zoology, Budapest, the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien and the Heterocera Press established a homepage listing and illustrating the Noctuoidea fauna of Austria. This homepage contains the taxonomic list of all species and a few additional ones in square brackets which are expected to reach the borders of Austria. The homepage illustrates altogether 730 taxa by four specimens of each species, in most cases by two males and two females. The colour plates are accessible by clicking on the name of a given taxon or via using the search function by typing in the name (or a part of the name) of the genus, species or subspecies into the field above the checklist.
A future revised checklist with full citations, synonyms and comments will be published later, in a separate article. One of the species mentioned in the homepage, Hecatera weissi, is new for the fauna of Austria, the short article with the proper data and the morphological comparison will also be published soon. The homepage will have a short bilingual (German and English) introduction which is planned to add to the homepage in the next days.
The website is open for free public access, via the link : http://www.entomologia.hu/noctaust
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