The Coleophoridae are a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

of small

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, belonging to the huge superfamily

Gelechioidea __NOTOC__ Gelechioidea (from the type genus ''Gelechia'', "keeping to the ground") is the Taxonomic rank, superfamily of moths that contains the case-bearers, twirler moths, and relatives, also simply called curved-horn moths or gelechioid moths. ...

. Collectively known as case-bearers, casebearing moths or case moths, this family is represented on all continents, but the majority are found in temperate areas of the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

. They are most common in the

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. Th ...

, and rare in

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

; consequently, they probably originated (like most or all other Gelechioidea families) in northern

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

. They are relatively common in houses, they seek out moist areas to rest and procreate.

Description and ecology

These "

micromoth Microlepidoptera (micromoths) is an artificial (i.e., unranked and not monophyletic) grouping of moth families, commonly known as the "smaller moths" ( micro, Lepidoptera). These generally have wingspans of under 20 mm, so are harder to iden ...

s" are generally of slender build, and like in many of their relatives, the margins of their wings usually consist of a "fringe" of hairs. The tiny

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

e initially feed internally on the

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s, or

seed In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be Sowing, sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds ...

s of their host plants. When they emerge to feed externally, they usually construct a protective silken case, discarded and built anew as they grow and

molt In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at ...

. The common names of the Coleophoridae refer to this habit. The bagworm moths (Psychidae), which also belong to the primitive

Ditrysia Ditrysia is a clade of lepidopterans that contains both butterflies and a majority of moth species. They are named for the fact that the female has two distinct sexual openings: one for mating, and the other for laying eggs. About 98% of know ...

(although to 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 ...

, not Gelechioidea), build similar cases as larvae. As opposed to these, though, the case-bearer females leave their cases to

pupa A pupa (; : pupae) is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages th ...

te and have normally developed wings as adults, instead of being

neotenous Neoteny (), also called juvenilization,Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. Bergin & Garvey: CT. is the delaying or slowing of the physiological, or somatic, development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny in modern humans is more signi ...

as female bagworms usually are.

Taxonomy and systematics

About 95% of the over 1,000 described

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

have been placed in the " wastebin genus" ''

Coleophora ''Coleophora'' is a very large genus of moths of the family Coleophoridae. It contains some 1,350 described species. The genus is represented on all continents, but the majority are found in the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions. Many authors have t ...

''. Many proposals have been made to

split Split(s) or The Split may refer to: Places * Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia * Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay * Split Island, Falkland Islands * Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua Arts, enter ...

smaller genera from ''Coleophora'', but few have been accepted, due to the uncertainties about which species are closest to the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of ''Coleophora'' – '' C. anatipennella'' – and thus would remain in the genus. Regarding the family's circumscription versus other Gelechioidea, it is by now far less disputed than usual for this superfamily. The

Blastobasidae The Blastobasidae are a family of moths in the superfamily Gelechioidea. Its species can be found almost anywhere in the world, though in some places they are not native but introduced by humans. In some arrangements, these moths are included in ...

, Momphidae (mompha moths), Pterolonchidae, and Symmocidae have formerly been included in the Coleophoridae as subfamilies, but are more often considered separate families today. With the internal relationships of Coleophoridae genera (as far as they are widely accepted) and species essentially unresolved due to the classification problems mentioned above, no subfamilies or

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

s are accepted in the family for the time being.

Genera

Genera of case-bearers at least provisionally accepted by recent authors include: * '' Amblyxena'' * '' Augasma'' * ''

'' * '' Corythangela'' (Batrachedridae) * '' Enscepastra'' (Batrachedridae) * '' Goniodoma'' * '' Iriothyrsa'' (Agonoxeninae) * '' Ischnophanes'' * '' Ischnopsis'' (Agonoxeninae) * '' Metriotes'' * '' Nasamonica'' * '' Porotica'' (Agonoxeninae)

References

See also Gelechioidea Talk page for comparison of some approaches to gelechioid systematics and taxonomy.

Description and ecology

Taxonomy and systematics

Genera

See also

References

Further reading