Investigation of the insect fauna of northern Vietnam - Particularly in relation to the Japanese fauna -

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Three expeditions were made to the northern areas of Vietnam in a period from 1994 to 1995, and many good forests from 200 to 2,000m in altitude were explored and entomologically investigated. Most extensive and intensive surveys were made in the forests of Tam Dao (400-1,200m) and Sa Pa (1,500-2,000m), bringing forth many new findings, among which were found many important data for analysing the nature and origin of the northern Vietnamese insect fauna.The material obtained were studied by the members of this project and by other Japanese entomologists, and 17 papers dealing with the results obtained were already published. Remaining materials are being studied now, and many more papers are expected to be published in 1996 and succeeding years.The northern Vietnamese insect fauna consists mainly of the members of the southern part of China, the Himalayas and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula and their close relatives, and several insects which have close relationship to those of Japan were also discovered by this research. One of the good examples is the aquatic beetles of the genus Nipponhydrus (Dytiscidae). The members of this genus had theretofore been known only from Japan (two species) and from the Himalayas (one species), and a fourth species was discovered on the Phang Si Pang Mts. (2,000m in alt.) near Sa Pa. A new species of day-flying moth, Eterusia nobuoi (Zygaenidae), was collected at the sammit of Mt.Tam Dao, its closest relative being E.watanabei, a species endemic to the Tsushima Islands.