168 
MICROLEPIDOPTERA OF NEW GUINEA 
have apparently had equal chances : now here, at one time Indo-Malayan, 
now there at another time Australian forms found optimal conditions for a 
development along new lines. This development has been, and probably 
still is, vigorous, as the conquerors of the battlefield — to speak in the 
terms of our metaphor — found themselves subjected to the influence of 
the extremely active “creative agent”, peculiar to the zoocentres of the 
present region. Thus a rich and independent now existing Papuan fauna 
of Microlepidoptera was formed. 
The data of Table II are summarised by numbers in Table III. We put 
the suggestive lines 5 and 7 in italics; these indicate, however roughly, the 
fairly equal chances of the Oriental elements in total represented by 37 
apodemic genera as against 43 genera of Australian origin. 
TABLE III 
Numerical distribution of the apodemic genera of Microlepidoptera endemic 
species of which were collected in Central New Guinea: 
Region 
Recorded in com- 
mon with this re- 
gion but occurring 
also elsewhere 
Recorded in com- 
mon with this re- 
gion only 
1. South Asia from India to South China 
and Formosa 
25 
4 
2. Malay Archipelago 
24 
2 
3. Moluccas 
13 
2 
4. Philippine Islands 
6 
0 
5. Total Oriental Region 
37 
15 
6. Pacific region 
3 
0 
7. Australia 
43 
20 
8. New Zealand 
3 
0 
9. Palaearctic region 
7 
2 
10. North America 
6 
2 
11. South and Central America .... 
2 
0 
12. Africa 
5 
0 
13. Total Oriental and Australian . . . 
2 
— 
14. Total from outside Oriental region 
and Australia only 
6 
— 
The Philippine Islands are generally regarded as hating functioned as 
a bridge between the Papuan region on one side and the South Asiatic 
continent and Northern parts of the Malay Archipelago on the other. 
The scanty data of our tables tend towards the prevalence of the Oriental 
influence on the fauna of Microlepidoptera; six genera recorded which 
occur there in common with the Papuan region are also known from this 
Oriental region, one from the Moluccas, and only one from the Oriental and 
Australian regions together. 
As to the southern bridge with the Malayan Region, the Lesser Sunda 
Islands, hardly anything was known about their Microlepidoptera. 
