赤坂御用地の鱗翅類

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Four hundred and sixty-three species of moths in 45 families and 31 species of butterflies in 7 families were collected in the Akasaka Imperial Gardens, ca. 51 ha in area, central Tokyo. The survey was carried out from 2002 to 2004 by using a light, sugar bait and a Malaise traps and by ordinary day-time collectings of adults and larvae. All the collecting data are given in the list, in which some noteworthy moths and butterflies are commented in comparison with the records at the Imperial Palace, Tokyo, 1996-2000 (Owada et al., 2000) and of the garden of the Institute for Nature Study, Tokyo, 1998-2000 (Owada et al., 2001) (Table 2). Two larvae of Epiponponia nawai, an external parasite of cicadas, were discovered on the body of a male Meimuna opalifera (Fig. 5). It is worth noting that this ecologically interesting moth still survives in a large green tract of the urban centre of Tokyo. As was already pointed out by Owada et al. (2000, 2001), such larger moths as the Drepanidae, Lasiopampidae, Saturniidae, Sphingidae, Notodontidae and Arctiidae, are endangered or extinct in the city area of Tokyo. The largest moth, still surviving in Tokyo, isActias artemis, Saturniidae, which was discovered not only in the Akasaka Imperial Gardens but also in Shinjuku, near NSMT, and Setagaya in 2004. In the early 1950's, 14 species of notodontid moths were recorded in the garden of the Institute for Nature Study, Tokyo (Monbusho National Institute for Nature Study, 1952). On the contrary, five species were discovered in the Imperial Palace (Owada et al., 2000), two in the Institute for Nature Study (Owada et al., 2001), and four in the Akasaka Imperial Gardens in this study. The total number of species collected in those surveys is seven, in which four species, Phalelodonta manleyi, Ptilophora nohirae, Lophontosia pryeri and Micromelalopha troglodita, were not listed the 1950's survey. These moths would have inhabited the urban area of Tokyo in those days, because the former two species fly only in the winter season, and the latter two is also common in the suburb of Tokyo. In these 50 years, the following 11 notodontid species are considered to have become extinct from large green tracts of the Tokyo city area: Stauropus fagi, Rabtala cristata, Fentonia ocypete, Harpyia umbrosa, Pterostoma sinicum, Neostauropus basalis, Eguria ornate, Shaka atrovittatus, Tarsolepisjaponica, Phalera angustipennis and Mimopydna pallida. On the other hand, diversity of winter moths in the Akasaka Imperial Palace and the Imperial Place Gardens, Tokyo, is retained at a level as high as on the hills of the suburbs of Tokyo, 11 geometrid and 22 noctuid species. These moths are rather few in the Institute for Nature Study, only 4 geometrid and 5 noctuid species. In the winter season, such predators of moths as birds and reptiles are scarce and it is not a breeding period for them. Their activity of predation will be very low in the winter, and those moths have rather weak photoactivity, especially in noctuids. It is worth noting that larvae of most winter moths are polyphagous on broadleaved trees, while most of the extinct notodontid moths are oligophagous. It should be stressed that the host plants of those extinct notodontids are now abundant in these large green tracts in Tokyo. The butterfly fauna of the Akasaka Imperial Gardens is rich and very similar to those of the Imperial Palace and the Institute for Nature Study, Tokyo.
国立科学博物館の論文
2005-03-25

赤坂御用地の鱗翅類

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