Fibigeriana - Book series of Lepidopterology - Volume 1

Lödl, M. Gaal-Haszler, S., Jovanovic-Kruspel, S., Ronkay, G.,  Ronkay, L. & Varga, Z. 2012. Fibigeriana - Vol.1  The Vartian Collection. Part I. Noctuoidea.  304 pp. ISBN 978-963-88014-9-4.

Eva Vartian is one of the most outstanding persons of the Lepidopterology of the 20th century. Her collection is above all renowned because of its richness in species and the excellent setting quality of the materials, the majority of which was collected and prepared by herself. The collection contains over 140,000 set specimens (incl. 4,400 type specimens) with several thousands of additional pinned, unsorted ones housed in nearly 940 drawers. The main stock of this enormous material has been collected before the use of automatic light traps during thirty expeditions in previously poorly explored countries like Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The most important part of the collection is that of the vast Iranian and Afghan accessions, which represents the best reference material from this region. It is especially rich in Noctuidae with some 60,000 specimens.

The first section of the book is bilingual, introducing Eva Vartian and her lepidopterological activity in English and German. The scientific part comprises the annotated list of the type-material, a revised checklist of the Noctuoidea collection (altogether 3009 species-group taxa belonging to 673 genera), life-size colour images of all recognised taxa of the superfamily on 152 colour plates and a number of black and white and colour images illustrating Eva Vartian’s life and expeditions.

This book, the first volume of the new lepidopterological series Fibigeriana, represents an encyclopaedic overview and identification guide to the fauna of Noctuoidea from Western and Central Asia. It is recommended to all amateur and professional lepidopterists who are involved into maintenance and development of collections and study of the extreme diversity of the Near and Middle East Lepidoptera.