''Phyllobrostis'' is a genus of
moth
Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...
s in the family
Lyonetiidae
Lyonetiidae is a family of moths with around 200 described species. These are small, slender moths, the wingspan rarely exceeding 1 cm. The very narrow forewings, held folded backwards covering the hindwings and abdomen, often have pointed G ...
.
[ They occur in Central and Southern Europe, North Africa, Southern Africa, and western Asia.][
]
Descrription
The wingspan
The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...
is , with females slightly larger than males. The larvae are leaf miner
A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths (Lepidoptera), sawflies (Symphyta, a paraphyletic group which ...
s or form galls
Galls (from the Latin , 'oak-apple') or ''cecidia'' (from the Greek , anything gushing out) are a kind of swelling growth on the external tissues of plants. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to benign tumors or wart ...
. Most species for which the host plant is known use ''Daphne
Daphne (; ; , , ), a figure in Greek mythology, is a naiad, a variety of female nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of freshwater.
There are several versions of the myth in which she appears, but t ...
'' spp., but one species uses ''Thymelaea microphylla
''Thymelaea'' (the sparrow-worts) is a genus of about 30 species of evergreen shrubs and herbs in the flowering plant family Thymelaeaceae, native to the Canary Islands, the Mediterranean region, north to central Europe, and east to central Asia ...
''.
Species
There are about 11 species:[
*''eremitella''-group
** '' Phyllobrostis eremitella'' De Joannis, 1912
** '' Phyllobrostis tephroleuca'' (Meyrick, 1913)
** '' Phyllobrostis calcaria'' Meyrick, 1911
** '' Phyllobrostis apathetica'' (Meyrick, 1921)
*''daphneella''-group
** '' Phyllobrostis daphneella'' Staudinger, 1859
** '']Phyllobrostis jedmella
''Phyllobrostis jedmella'' is a moth in the family Lyonetiidae. It is found in Algeria and Spain.
The wingspan is 5.5–6 mm for males. Adults are on wing in April. The larvae feed on '' Thymelaea microphylla'', mining
Mining is the ...
'' Chretien, 1907
** '' Phyllobrostis hartmanni'' Staudinger, 1867
** '' Phyllobrostis fregenella'' Hartig, 1940
** '' Phyllobrostis farsensis'' Mey, 2006
** '' Phyllobrostis nuristanica'' Mey, 2006
** '' Phyllobrostis kandaharensis'' Mey, 2006
The status of '' Phyllobrostis argillosa'' Meyrick, 1911 is disputed. In 2006 Wolfram Mey argued that it is misplaced in Lyonetiidae and even in Yponomeutoidea
Yponomeutoidea is a superfamily of ermine moths and relatives. There are about 1,800 species of Yponomeutoids worldwide, most of them known to come from temperate regions. This superfamily is one of the earliest groups to evolve external feedin ...
and that it should probably be placed in the superfamily Tineoidea
Tineoidea is the ditrysian superfamily of moths that includes clothes moths, bagworms and relatives. There are six families usually included within it, Eriocottidae, Arrhenophanidae, Lypusidae, Acrolophidae, Tineidae and Psychidae, whose r ...
, probably in Tineidae
Tineidae is a family of moths in the order Lepidoptera described by Pierre André Latreille in 1810. Collectively, they are known as fungus moths or tineid moths. The family contains considerably more than 3,000 species in more than 300 genera. ...
.
References
Lyonetiidae
Ditrysia genera
Taxa named by Otto Staudinger
{{Lyonetiidae-stub