''Dominickus'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

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 w ...

in the butterfly-moth family

Castniidae Castniidae, or castniid moths, is a small family of moths with fewer than 200 species: The majority are Neotropical with some in Australia and a few in south-east Asia. These are medium-sized to very large moths, usually with drab, cryptically-ma ...

containing a

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

species ''Dominickus castnioides''. The species is known from

late Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "daw ...

Priabonian stage The Priabonian is, in the ICS's geologic timescale, the latest age or the upper stage of the Eocene Epoch or Series. It spans the time between . The Priabonian is preceded by the Bartonian and is followed by the Rupelian, the lowest stage of t ...

, lake deposits near the small community of Guffey in

Teller County, Colorado Teller County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 24,710. The county seat is Cripple Creek, and the most populous city is Woodland Park. Teller County is included in the Colorado Sprin ...

, United States.

History and classification

''Dominickus castnioides'' is known only from one fossil, the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

, specimen "P.22949". It is a single, mostly complete pair of fore wings, preserved as a compression fossil in fine grained

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

. The shale specimen is from the fossiliferous outcrops of the

Florissant Formation The Florissant Formation is a sedimentary geologic formation outcropping around Florissant, Teller County, Colorado. The formation is noted for the abundant and exceptionally preserved insect and plant fossils that are found in the mudstones and ...

which outcrop near Guffey southwest of Florissant. The type specimen is currently preserved in the paleoentomological collections housed in the

Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

, located in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, United States. ''Dominickus'' was first studied by

Norman Barnett Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

, with his 1985

type description A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...

being published in the ''Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera''. The

generic Generic or generics may refer to: In business * Generic term, a common name used for a range or class of similar things not protected by trademark * Generic brand, a brand for a product that does not have an associated brand or trademark, other ...

name was coined by Tindale in honor of

Richard B. Dominick Richard Bayard Dominick (September 17, 1919 - May 4, 1976) was an American ophthalmologist, outdoorsman, and amateur lepidopterist. He is best known for his extensive collection of moths and butterflies in South Carolina. He established the Wedge ...

. Tindale did not provide an

explanation An explanation is a set of Statement (logic), statements usually constructed to description, describe a set of facts which clarifies the causality, causes, wiktionary:context, context, and Logical consequence, consequences of those facts. It may ...

for the

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''castnioides''. When first examined, the specimen was thought to possibly be related to an early ancestor of Hesperioidea and

Papilionoidea The superfamily Papilionoidea (from the genus ''Papilio'', meaning "butterfly") contains all the butterflies except for the moth-like Hedyloidea. The members of the Papilionoidea may be distinguished by the following combination of characters: ...

, due to the overall wide shape of the wings and the fork of the Cu vein being near the wing midpoint. However while Tindale was examining a series of photographs taken in Australia of live ''

Synemon ''Synemon'' (commonly known as the Sun-moths) is a genus of moths within the family Castniidae. It was described by Edward Doubleday in 1846. The genus contains 24 described and 20 undescribed species. These species are found across mainland Aust ...

'' species butterfly-moths, he noticed a strong similarity between the modern moth and the Florissant fossil. Tindale then compared the fossil to the modern Chilean species '' Castnia psittacus'' which shows a closer match. The major difference between the fossil and modern members of Castniidae is the fossil's lack of a crossvein between the R₁ and R₂ veins. At the time of description, the Florissant Formation was considered to be

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...

in age. Further refinement of the formation's age using radiometric dating of sanidine crystals has resulted in an age of 34 million years old, which places the formation in the Eocene Chadronian stage. Further refinement of the Eocene-Oligocene has placed the formation into the late Eocene Priabonian stage.

Description

The holotype forewings of ''Dominickus castnioides'' are about long and about wide. The wings have an overall broadly triangular shape with a rounded tip. The vein structure is very similar to that of modern Castniidae members, having an R-vein which supports the costal third of the wing. Due to the nature of the matrix in which the fossil is preserved, the wing scales of the specimen are not distinguishable or are absent. The outline of wing margin furthest from the wing base is possibly a fringe like that found in the modern members of the family. Photographs of the specimen give possible indications of the color pattering with the costal area, narrow at the wing base and widening out at the midpoint a dark tone. The base of the wing was possibly light colored with the tone extending along the hind margin.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5290947 † Fossil Lepidoptera Eocene insects Fossil taxa described in 1985 Prehistoric insects of North America Florissant Formation