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This is the first part of the series I have undertaken as a Scientific
Associate of the Natural History Museum, with access to collections, libraries
and with working space and facilities provided in the Department of Entomology.
I am grateful also for continued use of a microscope and computer equipment on
loan from the International Institute of Entomology.
I have enjoyed the support of a part-time assistant, Núria López Mercader, generously funded by The Friends of the Natural History Museum. My
thanks are due to them and to Núria, who has undertaken a considerable amount
of literature research, translation, dissection, text checking and help with
preparation of the figures. Some preliminary work was also done by her
predecessor, Mandy Heddle. Much support in seeing the series through to
publication in Malaysia continues to be provided by Henry Barlow, who also
markets the reprint edition and underwrites the cost of the colour plates. The
colour plates were photographed by Bernard D'Abrera and those of early stages by David Agassiz. I am very grateful to my wife, Phillipa, for the long
hours she put in at the keyboard to produce camera-ready copy for the text and
figure legends.
The work would have been impossible without the full access to the
collections mentioned above and other facilities in The Natural History Museum,
London. Material was also examined in, or from, the Australian National Insect
Collection, Canberra, the Zoologisch Museum, University of Amsterdam, the U.S.
National Museum of Natural History, Washington, the B.P. Bishop Museum,
Honolulu, the University Museum, Oxford, the Forest Research Centre collection,
Sepilok, and the FRIM collection, Kepong. I am grateful to the staff of all
these institutions for their assistance, and to Chey Vun Khen and Jurie Intachat
of the last two for access to unpublished host records. Such records were also
gleaned from data taken from material submitted to IIE over the years for
identification (See Sterrhinae). John Rawlins kindly provided me with a translation
of host-plant data in Inoue et al. (1982). Paddy Murphy kindly sent
voucher material from his mangrove studies for examination. In May 1997 M.C.
Herbulot brought Bornean material from his collection to London that enabled
useful additions to be made to the text at a late stage. More detailed
investigation of some of this material will be reported on in Part 8.
Thanks are also due to the following for their critical comments on all
or part of the text: Charles Covell, Tony Galsworthy, Hiroshi Inoue, Malcolm
Scoble and Katsumi Yazaki. Frequent discussions with Tony Galsworthy, studying
the Sterrhinae and Larentiinae of Hong Kong in parallel, led to resolution of
numerous knotty problems of identification and to enhancement of our knowledge
of various taxa to the benefit of both our research programmes. The work also
benefited from interactions at various times with David Carter, Chey Vun Khen,
S.-W. Choi, Hiroshi Inoue, Jurie Intachat, Mark Parsons, Gaden Robinson and
Katsumi Yazaki.
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