''Catapterix'' is a small genus of

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...

s in the family

Acanthopteroctetidae Acanthopteroctetidae is a small family of primitive moths with two described genera, ''Acanthopteroctetes'' and '' Catapterix'', and a total of seven described species. They are known as the archaic sun moths. As of 2002, the Acanthopteroctet ...

, with species occurring in Europe and Central Asia. The genus was previously considered monotypic, with ''

Catapterix crimaea ''Catapterix crimaea'' is a moth of the family Acanthopteroctetidae and type species of the genus ''Catapterix''. It was described in 1988 from the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in East ...

'' as its sole known species, until the formal description of ''

Catapterix tianshanica ''Catapterix tianshanica'' is a moth of the family Acanthopteroctetidae, currently known only from a single adult male specimen collected in Kyrgyzstan. Its host plants are unknown. Description ''Catapterix tianshanica'' has a wingspan of 7 ...

'' in 2016.

Distribution

The type species, ''C. crimaea'', is known from the

Crimean Peninsula Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

Fauna Europaea
/ref> and from southern France, whereas ''C. tianshanica'' is described from

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the ea ...

Taxonomy

The genus was originally placed in its own family, Catapterigidae, which is now considered a synonym of

References

Acanthoctesia Glossata genera Taxa named by Aleksei Konstantinovich Zagulyaev {{Moth-stub