Pterolonchidae is a small family of very small moths in the superfamilyGelechioidea.[3] There are species native to every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
Taxonomy and systematics
As of 2014 the family may be considered to consist of the following seven genera:[1][2][4]
The family Pterolonchidae was first named by Edward Meyrick in 1918. Meyrick omitted a description, thus the family was a nomen nudum, until Thomas Bainbrigge Fletcher provided the first description of the family in 1929.[5]
In 1987 (the journal volume is dated to 1986, but this issue was published the following year) Antonio Vives Moreno published a revision of the family. Vives included seven species in two genera in the family (Pterolonche and the monotypicAnathyrsa), describing two new species and synonymising one species within the genus Pterolonche. He also published a new subgeneric classification for Pterolonche: the subgeneraAgenjius and Gomezbustillus to classify respectively two species native to southern Andalucia and the northwestern Maghreb, and one species native to Sicily.[5]
In 1999 Ron Hodges classified the group as the subfamily Pterolonchinae of the family Coleophoridae, including eight species in two genera (still Pterolonche and Anathyrsa). His classification was based on morphology (as all other classifications had been constructed up until this time).[4][6]
In WikiSpecies in 2008, the Pterolonchidae mysteriously included:[3]
In Zhi-Qiang Zhang's 2011 attempt to number all the known animal species of earth, van Nieukerken et al., the authors of the section on Lepidoptera, followed the works of Vives in 1987 and Hodges in 1999 regarding the Pterolonchidae. They recognised the Coelopoetidae and Syringopaidae as distinct families. In their taxonomic interpretation, the family Pterolonchidae was circumscribed by Edward Meyrick in 1918, and comprised eight species in two genera.[1]
Plexippica had originally been described as an independent monotypic genus by Edward Meyrick in 1912, but the single species was moved to the genus Pterolonche by him in 1924 (making Plexippica a synonym of Pterolonche). Nonetheless the lone taxon found itself classified as a member of the Yponomeutinae subfamily of the Yponomeutidae family in the Yponomeutoidea superfamily under its old name. The species was then rediscovered in South Africa and described as the new genus Kruegerius by Vives in 1999, and was placed in the Pterolonchidae by him, but in 2011 Wolfram Mey re-recognised Plexippica, synonymised Kruegerius with Plexippica, moved the genus to the Pterolonchidae yet again, and described a new second species in the genus.[7][8][9]
Two species of Homaledra are known from South America, and two are from North America.[14][15]Houdinia is restricted to an area in the north of the North Island of New Zealand.[16]
Ecology
Both genera Anathyrsa and Pterolonche are nocturnal. In Pterolonche both sexes are attracted to lamps at night and are easy to collect.[5]Syringopais temperatellaimagoes are active both day and night in May in Turkey,[13] and lay their eggs in the summer, with the caterpillars emerging in the winter and early spring.[17]Homaledra builds elaborate feeding chambers of silk under which the caterpillars hide.[18]
^ abHodges, Ronald W. (1999). "The Gelechioidea". In Kristensen, N.P. (ed.). Handbuch der Zoologie/Handbook of Zoology Vol. 4, part 35. Lepidoptera, Moths and Butterflies Vol. 1. Evolution, Systematics and Biogeography. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 131–158. ISBN978-3-11-015704-8.
^"Syringopais temperatella (Lederer, 1855)". Fauna Europaea. Fauna Europaea Secretariat, Museum für Naturkunde Leibniz & Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
^ abWilkinson, D. S. (March 1927). "Some Notes on Syringopais temperatella, Led., in Cyprus". Bulletin of Entomological Research. 17 (3): 313–314. doi:10.1017/S0007485300019398.
^"Syringopais Temperatella". Bestimmungshilfe des Lepiforums (in German). 1 July 2019. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
Data related to Pterolonchidae at Wikispecies See also Gelechioidea Talk page for comparison of some approaches to gelechioid systematics and taxonomy.