LAUSR

* Correspondence: [email protected] Since the weevil fauna has an important role in different terrestrial ecosystems, especially in biodiversity hotspots (such as the Balkan Peninsula), further research into it is of great significance. On the Balkan Peninsula, the weevil fauna has not been studied to the same degree across the whole territory. In Serbia, there were numerous but partial efforts to investigate this issue (Pešić, 2006). The most comprehensive collecting of weevil material was conducted in Central Serbia (vicinity of Kragujevac) from 1987 to 1994 (Pešić, 1998). Hypera Germar, 1817 is a genus of medium-sized weevils (3–9 mm) (Freude et al., 1983), distributed in the Holarctic (Alonso-Zarazaga and Lyal, 1999; AlonsoZarazaga, 2013). These weevils have a colorful top side of the body ranging from black to yellowish-white (the pattern consists of a variety of hairs and scales). The biology of the Hypera species is related to plants from the families Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Polygonaceae, and Caryophyllaceae, depending on where females deposit eggs, i.e. on the feeding choice of their legless larvae (Skuhrovec, 2006, 2015). Some of them are regarded as legume pests (Angelov, 1978). Hypera moczarskii (Penecke, 1936) is a rarely found species, represented by only a few examples in European entomological collections. When Penecke (1936) described this species, he stated the name of the locality where the material (one male and three females) had been collected (Volo in Thessaly, Greece), but he gave no information about their habitat or biology. The primary type material was collected by Penecke’s friend, Emil Moczarski, to whom the species was dedicated. This paper reports on the first finding of H. moczarskii outside of Greece, in Serbia, and gives some details about its biology. The morphological, anatomical, ecological, and distributional data are compared with those of another European member of the same subgenus Boreohypera: Hypera (Boreohypera) diversipunctata (Schrank, 1798). Adult weevils were collected in the springtime of 1993 and 1994, in two places on the territory of Kragujevac (Central Serbia) (Figure 1), by sweeping herbaceous plants with an entomological net. Insects were killed by ethyl acetate and prepared for study by careful isolation of each specimen’s genitalia. Specimens were deposited in the author’s weevil collection at the Faculty of Science, University of Kragujevac. As a part of much broader ecological research of weevil fauna in Kragujevac and its surrounding area (Figure 1), two males of H. moczarskii were collected: one on 21 March 1993, in Šumarice Memorial park, near Sušički stream (44°01′33.61′′N, 20°53′17.97′′E), at 200 m altitude, on a valley meadow with flowering Tussilago farfara, and Abstract: The rare weevil species Hypera (Boreohypera) moczarskii Penecke, 1936, previously recorded only in Greece, has been registered for the first time in Central Serbia. Two adult males were collected in 1993 and 1994, in two places in the area of Kragujevac (Central Serbia). These findings extend H. moczarskii’s distribution area to the north, and this rare species should no longer be considered as Greek, but rather as endemic to the Balkan Peninsula. Both specimens are males, and drawings of the aedeagus are shown for the first time. Hypera moczarskii is one of two European members of the subgenus Boreohypera Korotyaev, 1999, besides H. (B.) diversipunctata (Schrank, 1798). The distribution areas of these two species, as well as morphological and ecological data, are presented in parallel.