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As pointed out in Durante and Panzera (2004) and various other works (e.g. Durante and Potenza, 2016), the entomological fauna of the Salento Peninsula (Southern Italy) has not been extensively investigated. Regarding the Lepidoptera, little structured researches have been carried out to date, and there is thus a large gap in our knowledge in this area. Considering the socalled microlepidoptera in particular, very few data for the Salento are available. The only family that has been exhaustively studied is that of the Pterophoridae by Durante and Panzera (2004). The present paper thus represents the second attempt to provide more complete information on the Salento microlepidoptera. This paper addresses only the Pyraustinae and Spilomelinae subfamilies, but other Crambidae subfamilies also merit studies of their own. The results of this study highlight the presence of 22 species in the family Crambidae (superfamily Pyraloidea), of which 10 belong to the subfamily Pyraustinae and 12 to the subfamily Spilomelinae. In addition, of the 22 species of Pyraustinae and Spilomelinae discovered, 2 are new for Italy as a whole, 1 for peninsular Italy, 8 for S Italy, 4 for Apulia and 4 for the Salento, while only 3 had already been reported for the Salento. In addition to contributing significantly to our knowledge of Pyraloidea, the results here presented give an idea of future developments in terms of more structured and organic research into this category of fauna (Scalercio, 2016) and the potential biodiversity of southern Italy, Puglia and the Salento Peninsula, characterised by a wide variety of habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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During the preparation of a complete list of the Noctuidae of the Salento peninsula, the authors examined the data regarding the tribes Hadenini and Glottulini (subfamily Hadeninae, old sense), due to their relative comprehensiveness. The purpose of this paper and of the others that will follow is to provide a more complete picture of the distribution of Noctuidae species in the examined territory, due to the scarcity and fragmentation of the information and records currently available. In total the collections were conducted over a decade and were made in highly diverse environments: urbanized areas, cultivated fields, olive groves, garrigues, Mediterranean maquis, Quercus ilex groves, pinewoods, drainage channels, coastal wetlands, retrodunal areas. The collections revealed the presence in the Salento of 32 species of the subfamily Hadeninae o.s., which is about 28% of the Hadeninae o.s. of the three Italian regions Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria, and about 56% of the Hadeninae o.s. of Puglia alone. The authors call attention to the presence of three Afrotropical species, Mythimna prominens, Leucania joannisi and Brithys crini, accounting for almost 9% of the total Hadeninae o.s. of the Salento (n = 32) and almost 16% if we add Leucania loreyi and Mythimna languida, whose distribution includes the entire (or almost) Palaeotropical Region. The reasons for the high percentage of Tropical species need to be studied further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]