A list of the primary type specimens of Lepidoptera in the "Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Genève" Geneva, Switzerland

A list of 437 primary type specimens found to have been deposited in the “Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Genève” Geneva (MHNG), to date (7.v.2019), is presented. Thirty-seven families of Lepidoptera are represented by primary type specimens, the most diversified being the Noctuidae (96), Pyralidae sensu lato (82), and Erebidae (41). Sixty-seven of the names (15.3%) for which these 437 primary types form the basis are now synonyms, 105 (24.0%) are used in other combinations, and 265 (60.6%) remain as in the original combinations. Sixty-seven authors were responsible for the descriptions of the corresponding taxa, the most prolific being Joseph de Joannis (1864-1932; 56 taxa), Jacques Plante (1920-2003; 54 taxa), and Bernard Landry (1962-; 50 taxa). The oldest taxa for which the MHNG holds type specimens were described by Achille Guenée (1809-1880) in 1872. The most prolific decades in terms of taxonomic descriptions for which the primary types are deposited in the MHNG are the 1920s, with 80 taxa and the 1990s with 74 taxa, followed by the 1930s with 61 taxa. The Afrotropical region, with 40.3% of the taxa and the Palearctic region with 27.7% are the best represented, followed by the Neotropical (23.8%), the Oriental (7.3%), and the Australasian (0.9%) regions; none of the MHNG primary types are from the Nearctic region.