Ecologica Montenegrina, 38, 2020, 79-83 First record of Theretra alecto (Linnaeus, 1758) from Kazakhstan, with notes on the bionomics of the species (Lepidoptera, Macroheterocera, Sphingidae, Macroglossinae, Macroglossini) SERGEY V. TITOV 1 , ANTON V. VOLYNKIN 2,3 *, RUSLAN D. RAKHIMOV 4 & OLEG V. BELYALOV (†) 1 Department of Biology and Ecology; the Research Centre for Environmental "Monitoring", Toraighyrov University, Lomova str. 64, KZ-140008, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan. E-mail: sandipta@yandex.kz 2 Altai State University, Lenina Avenue, 61, RF-656049, Barnaul, Russia. E-mail: monstruncusarctia@gmail.com 3 National Research Tomsk State University, Lenina Avenue, 36, RF-634050, Tomsk, Russia 4 Department of Entomology, Institute of Zoology, al-Farabi str. 050060, Almaty, Kazakhstan * Corresponding author Received: 22 November 2020│ Accepted by V. Pešić: 1 December 2020 │ Published online: 3 December 2020. The fauna of hawk moths of Kazakhstan is still fragmentary studied and only several papers devoted to certain regions of the country were published (Zolotarenko et al. 1978; Aibasov & Zhdanko 1982; Gorbunov 2011; Shovkoon 2011, 2015; Yakovlev et al. 2013; Bragina et al. 2015; Knyazev 2015; Knyazev & Zuban’ 2016). The genus Theretra Hübner, [1819] comprises 58 species (Kitching 2020) distributed in the Indo - Malayan and Australian Regions, the range of the only Theretra japonica (Boisduval, 1869) is restricted by eastern Palaearctic (Pittaway & Kitching 2013). Theretra alecto (Linnaeus, 1758) is widely distributed in the Indo-Malayan and western Palaearctic Regions reaching in the north and north-west Transcaucasia and Mediterranean. The species was reliably reported from Central Asia from Turkmenistan (Danov & Pereladov 1985; Danner et al. 1998), Uzbekistan (Grum-Grshimailo 1890; Kozhanchikov 1930) and Kyrgyzstan (Danner et al. 1998; Korb 2018). On 24 September 2019, Oleg Belyalov took a photo of a live specimen in the suburb of Almaty city. Since then, we got additional data confirming the presence of the species in Kazakhstan including imagoes of both sexes (Figs 1–3) and pictures of the preimaginal stages (Figs 4–6). The data on the species’ distribution and bionomics in Kazakhstan are presented below. Abbreviations used: STP = coll. S.V. Titov (Pavlodar, Kazakhstan); DZA= coll. D.Z. Zakharov (Almaty, Kazakhstan); OBA = coll. O.B. Belyalov (Almaty, Kazakhstan). Live specimens were observed and photographed in nature with a Nikon D850 camera equipped with a Micro-Nikkor 60 mm f / 2.8D lens (photo by O. Belyalov); Canon EOS 50D equipped with Helios 44-2 58 mm f / 2.0. Macro-ring KMZ – 6374 (photo by R. Rakhimov); smartphone iPhone 6s (photo by O. Belyalov); smartphone Huawei Mate 10 Lite (photo by Q. Amirequl) and smartphone Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (photo by K. Popkov). Dry collection specimens were photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera equipped with Canon EF 100 mm f / 2.8L Macro USM lenses (photo by S. Titov). Eggs and larvae were collected from host plant and bred in captivity. Ecologica Montenegrina 38: 79-83 (2020) This journal is available online at: www.biotaxa.org/em http://dx.doi.org/10.37828/em.2020.38.10