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This is, chronologically, the eighteenth and final part of The Moths of Borneo to be published, though it had always been planned as the second in
the systematic sequence. This sequence in itself showed some eccentricities, as it followed to some extent that found in Seitz’ Macrolepidoptera of the World, thus splitting the traditional ‘Bombyces’ in the Noctuoidea (Notodontidae, Arctiidae and Lymantriidae) from the
‘Hampsonian’ Noctuidae themselves. The ‘Bombyces’ volumes of Seitz also included the Zygaenoidea and Cossoidea that make up the first two volumes of the
Borneo series.
There have been significant advances in the higher classification of the Lepidoptera during the three decades over which the series has been researched and
produced, and these are continuing, particularly those focused on molecular (DNA) data. Also, several of the groups covered in the earlier parts published
have been the subject of much fresh collecting and research within the Indo-Australian tropics. These factors, together with the relatively low number of
species in Borneo of the groups allocated to this second part, the Phaudidae, Himantopteridae and Zygaenidae, provide an opportunity for revision and
updating of the checklists of species summarizing the contents of each part, these being re-ordered and revised to reflect current classificatory concepts
(the system of Nieukerken et al. (in press)) and to incorporate new records, both from the literature and from fresh material.
The higher classificatory changes are reviewed in the notes accompanying the checklist, one aim being to complement and revise the general account of the
Lepidoptera of the region presented by Holloway et al. (2001), updating the bibliography of key works in the process. Some historical notes on
development of The Moths of Borneo, its background and its wider relevance are included as an appendix by the author and H.S. Barlow.
A further reason for holding production of this part until the end is that there has long been a major international group of workers researching the
Zygaenoidea at various levels, and it was hoped that much of this work would have come to fruition before work on the Bornean fauna was undertaken. To some
extent this has occurred, but work on the Oriental Procridinae by Dr Gerhard M. Tarmann had been interrupted by administrative duties, not least responding
to the disastrous flooding of the Tiroler Landesmuseum in Innsbruck in 1985, when much damage occurred to the collections. This did not prevent
comprehensive works on the New World and Australian Procridinae being published by Dr Tarmann and, as will be noted later, he is now turning back to the
Oriental ones.
The account of the Chalcosiinae here is structured on the intensive studies of the subfamily by Dr Shen-Horn Yen and associates. The outlines of a generic
and tribal level classification are now available, but this process has highlighted a number of problems over the validity and composition of some genera
that still require resolution. These are described in more detail on pp. 32 - 38.
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