HADENINI AND GLOTTULINI OF THE SALENTO (SOUTH ITALY) (LEPIDOPTERA, NOCTUIDAE).

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]