HK Moths

[Roger C. KENDRICK]

Following the recent notes on increased species counts in the UK, just a note
of a similar vein from Hong Kong.  Trapping on tuesday last at a woodland site
(50m / 160' alt.) with 2 mv lights for 3 hours produced over 160 species, the
majority being microleps. Last thursday (one mv trap, all night) at KARC (200m
/ 650' alt., mixed shrub/wood) resulted in some 180 species, but the real
winner was on saturday, at Kadoorie Farm (just around the hill from KARC) with
two traps (one at 340m / 1100', woodland and one at 550m / 1800', 'dwarf'
woodland, with a 10' high canopy) with over 220 species recorded, including all
the big Saturniids seen in Hong Kong (Attacus atlas, Samia cynthia, Actias
selene and Actias heterogyna), a fair number of sphingids (Theretra nessus,
Cechenena aegrota, Acosmeryx castanea, Acosmeryx sericeus, Macroglossum
fritzei, Dahria rubiginosa, Angonyx testacea and lots of hill-topping Agrius
convolvuli in the upper trap) and a very noticeable difference in abundance of
the largest HK lithosiine, Macrobrochis gigas (a very distinctive footman, see
http://web.hku.hk/~kendrick/arc/mac-giga.htm) between the two traps - none on
the hill-top, but over 50 lower down.  Definitely a night worth losing some
sleep over!

--
Roger C. KENDRICK
  Demonstrator / Ph.D. Student
  Dept. of Ecology & Biodiversity, The University of Hong Kong
  mailto:kendrick at hkusua.hku.hk

mailing address:
  Kadoorie Agricultural Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong
  Lam Kam Road, Shek Kong, Yuen Long, New Territories, HONG KONG

Hong Kong Moths website coordinator
  http://web.hku.hk/~kendrick/hkmoth.htm

HK Lepidoptera Group webmaster (English version)
  http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/1085/