An illustrated catalogue of the type specimens of Lepidoptera (Insecta) housed in the Zoological Museum Hamburg (ZMH): Part I. superfamilies Hepialoidea, Cossoidea, and Zygaenoidea

Abstract

Zoological collections remain the main archive of animal biodiversity on Earth, and especially in times of large-scale declines of many groups represent important resources for biodiversity and conservation research. The most important individuals of these collections are the type specimens, which represent the original and unique reference for a species. While a full digitization of most museum collections currently remains utopic, lists of types are an essential resource for researchers to perform taxonomic revisions. Here, we provide an updated type catalogue of the lepidopteran superfamilies Hepialoidea, Cossoidea and Zygaenoidea deposited in the Zoological Museum of Hamburg (ZMH). In this paper, we report 259 specimens labelled as “types” belonging to 36 infrasubspecific taxa (invalid under the ICZN codes), 34 subspecies (16 of valid status) and 13 species (all of valid status). We present a full bibliography of the original descriptions and illustrations for all taxa, aiming to provide a comprehensive taxonomic guide to this collection.