Annoted provisional list of the Pyraustinae and Spilomelinae (Lepidoptera, Pyraloidea, Crambidae) of the Salento peninsula (Southern Italy)

As pointed out in Durante and Panzera (2004) and various other works (e.g. Durante and Potenza, 2016), the entomological fauna of the Salento Peninsula (Southern Italy) has not been extensively investigated. Regarding the Lepidoptera, little structured researches have been carried out to date, and there is thus a large gap in our knowledge in this area. Considering the so-called microlepidoptera in particular, very few data for the Salento are available. The only family that has been exhaustively studied is that of the Pterophoridae by Durante and Panzera (2004). The present paper thus represents the second attempt to provide more complete information on the Salento microlepidoptera. This paper addresses only the Pyraustinae and Spilomelinae subfamilies, but other Crambidae subfamilies also merit studies of their own. The results of this study highlight the presence of 22 species in the family Crambidae (superfamily Pyraloidea), of which 10 belong to the subfamily Pyraustinae and 12 to the subfamily Spilomelinae. In addition, of the 22 species of Pyraustinae and Spilomelinae discovered, 2 are new for Italy as a whole, 1 for peninsular Italy, 8 for S Italy, 4 for Apulia and 4 for the Salento, while only 3 had already been reported for the Salento. In addition to contributing significantly to our knowledge of Pyraloidea, the results here presented give an idea of future developments in terms of more structured and organic research into this category of fauna (Scalercio, 2016) and the potential biodiversity of southern Italy, Puglia and the Salento Peninsula, characterised by a wide variety of habitats.