CHAPTER 3

SECTION 1. COMMENTS ON THE EXPOSITION OF THE MATERIAL
General information on the entomofauna of the Kuril archipelago was presented in Chapter 2. Particular systematic groups (orders, suborders, and families) are considered in detail in the present chapter; this is necessary for the elucidation of the general regularities of the distribution of insects on the territory of the islands, their numbers, and their associations with specific biotopes, and for the understanding of the ecological and zoogeographical particularities of the Kuril entomofauna. Only a comparison of the diverse information regarding the various groups of insects will make it possible to correctly assess the character of the entomofauna as a whole.

It does not seem possible to give an extended characterization of all of the orders of insects populating the Kuril Islands in the present work, since this would increase its volume unduly and would require additional, highly labor-intensive systematic study of exceptionally diverse groups of insects, whose systematics have not yet been sufficiently worked out in all cases.

The completeness of the analysis of the materials collected, the degree to which the various groups have been investigated, and its scope, as well as the diversity of the ecological associations have been taken into account in choosing systematic groups for a detailed review; groups of insects with diverse ecological relationships and types of alimentation were selected: phytophages, which feed on the green parts of plants, those developing in wood (xylophages), with sucking and gnawing types of alimentation, as well as predators, necrophages, and coprophages, which are not vitally associated with particular plants.

The review of each group is set forth in accordance with a general plan, and includes information regarding the extent to which the group has been investigated on the Kuril Islands, references to material employed, indications of the distribution of species along the archipelago, ecological and zoogeographical characteristics, and an annotated list of all of the species recorded on the archipelago. In some instances, when the material had been previously published in special articles, the list of species is presented in tables for convenience and to reduce the amount of text, and reference is made to the appropriate publication. We have attempted to give the most complete lists of species found on the islands for each of the groups under consideration. Therefore, in addition to our own collections, the collections of the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, collections of various specialists and amateur entomologists who have visited on the Kuril Range, as well as published data, have been used. When using materials collected by others, or published data, the surname of the collector or the literary source have been indicated in all instances.

A card file of genera and species was compiled for each family in the process of analyzing the materials. Systematicians, specialists with respect to the corresponding groups, provided a great deal of help in the identification of insects and in refining some of the systematic problems; this is mentioned in each specific case.

Information on the general distribution of the species was borrowed from monographic compendia on the fauna of the USSR and Japan, from catalogs, individual Soviet and foreign studies, and in some cases, from the collections of the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences and other institutions.

In the annotated lists and tables which substitute for them, species cited for the first time for the fauna of the USSR are denoted by two asterisks; those cited for the first time for the fauna of the Kuril Islands, by one asterisk; species listed on the basis of published data, by an exclamation point; and new species described on the basis of our materials, by a cross. In order to save space, the individual islands of the archipelago have been designated by the following abbreviations in the systematic lists: K - Kunashir; Sh - Shikotan; Yu - Yuriy; Z - Zelionyi; T - Tanfil'eva; I - Iturup; U - Urup; A - Alaid; S - Simushir; Ke - Ketoi; P - Paramushir; Shu - Shumshu; O - Onekotan. The Russian and Latin names of plants are cited on the basis of the studies of D. P. Vorob'ev et al. (1966) and V. N. Voroshilov (1966).