Contribution to the Knowledge of the Balkan Lepidoptera: Nocturnal Lepidoptera of Western Serbia (Lepidoptera)

Here are presented all data of the authors from five nights collecting in western Serbia at four localities. 401 species collected at light from 13 families are reported. Six species: Catoptria pauperellus (Treitschke, 1832), Macaria wauaria (Linnaeus, 1758), Charissa ambiguata (Duponchel, 1830), Charissa graecaria (Staudinger, 1871), Colostygia aptata (Hübner, 1813) and Eupithecia pimpinellata (Hübner, 1813) are new for Serbia. Seven other species are reported for a second time for the country. With illustrations of moths and their genitalia.


Introduction
All regions of Serbia deserve more comprehensive investigation of moth fauna. In almost every recently published faunistic paper on moths of Serbia new country records are reported. Western Serbia is situated in central part of the Balkan Peninsula and it is characterized by Dinaric Alps and numerous river gorges and canyons, while in its northernmost part there is Peripanonnian lowland. There are many mountains in western Serbia, however only two summits are more than 1800 m high, both on Mt. Golija. Much higher mountains of more than 2000 m height in surrounding areas of Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro received more lepidopterist's attention.
How moth fauna can be interesting in western Serbia shows a fact that just a few occasional visits can bring interesting results including new country records. Several species recently reported as new for Serbia were found in western Serbia (Beshkov 2017a,b;Stojanović et al. 2014;Stojanović et al. 2018). For five nights collecting there we found 13 new species for Serbia, 11 of which are Macrolepidoptera, published here and in other articles (Beshkov 2017a, b;Beshkov 2020). The number of the new Geometridae is greatest: 10 from 11. Most of them are from difficult genera with numbers of small in size representatives as Eupithecia which are not satisfactorily investigated. The reason for this is very limited number of local researchers on this family, and that for sure identification of many species it is necessary to examine male and female genitalia and sometime elaboration of precise microscopic genitalia slide. On the other hand good results can be achieved only by using modern collecting methods as autonomic source of electricity for the lamps in suitable habitats and ran the traps throughout the night.

Material and methods
Collecting methodology involved 2 portable light traps with an 8 watt actinic (368 nm) and 8 watt "Blacklight", both powered by 12 volt 9Ah batteries, as well as a Finnish "tent trap" with a 160 watt MV bulb at the top of the pole and a 20 watt (368 nm) black light over the catching pot below. An additional 20 watt (368nm) lamp was also positioned about 70 meters from the tent trap. Distance between Finnish "tent trap" and light traps, as well as between lignt traps is sometime more than 1 km as they are deposed in different exposition and habitats if possible. All traps ran throughout the night. In Savina Voda and Vasilin Vrh in July only light traps were used because of the rain.
Collecting localities in chronological order are: Savina Voda (Fig. 1      All genitalia slides were photographed by S. Beshkov with a Zeiss stereo microscope Stemi 2000-C with axioCam eRc 5s digital camera. Genitalia slides are fixed on glass in Euparal, solitary everted vesicas were photographed in alcohol before mounting on glass. All genitalia were stained with Merbromin solution 2%. Moths and collecting localities are photographed with Sony DSChX400v digital camera. All trips were selffinanced by the authors and undertaken in their own time. Families are arranged according to Aarvik et al. (2017). Sequence and nomenclature of families Erebidae and Noctuidae follow Yela et al. (2011) with incorporated subsequent changes from recent taxonomic revisions. The Geometridae are arranged according to Hausmann & Sihvonen (2019). When the specimen's number is indicated, this means that they are in the coll. S. Beshkov in the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia.

Inventory of the species:
Hepialidae