Palaephatoidea is a superfamily of insects in the order

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) or lepidopterans is an order (biology), order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organ ...

with a single family, Palaephatidae with seven known genera. These "

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

land moths" exhibit a

disjunct distribution In biology, a taxon with a disjunct distribution is one that has two or more groups that are related but considerably separated from each other geographically. The causes are varied and might demonstrate either the expansion or contraction of a s ...

occurring mainly in

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 ...

(Davis, 1986), with four species in eastern

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 ...

and

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

and one in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

(Davis, 1999). The larvae spin together leaves of

Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family (biology), family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genus, genera with about 1,660 known species. Australia and South Africa have the greatest concentr ...

(''Ptyssoptera'')internt.nhm.ac.uk
/ref> or

Verbenaceae The Verbenaceae ( ), the verbena family or vervain family, is a family of mainly tropical flowering plants. It contains trees, shrubs, and herbs notable for heads, spikes, or clusters of small flowers, many of which have an aromatic smell. T ...

(''Azaleodes'') (Nielsen, 1987). Palaephatoidea, a typical

monotrysia The Monotrysia are a group of moths in the lepidopteran order, not currently considered to be a natural group or clade. The group is so named because the female has a single genital opening for mating and laying eggs, in contrast to the rest of ...

n group, is one two main candidates as the

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of most of the Lepidoptera, the

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 ...

(see Tischerioidea and also Wiegmann ''et al.'', 2002).

References

*Davis, D.R. (1986). A new family of monotrysian moth from austral South America (Lepidoptera: Palaephatidae), with a phylogenetic review of the Monotrysia. ''Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology'', 434: 1–202. *Davis, D.R. (1999). The Monotrysian Heteroneura. Ch. 6, pp. 65–90 in Kristensen, N.P. (Ed.). ''Lepidoptera, Moths and Butterflies''. Volume 1: Evolution, Systematics, and Biogeography. Handbuch der Zoologie. Eine Naturgeschichte der Stämme des Tierreiches / Handbook of Zoology. A Natural History of the phyla of the Animal Kingdom. Band / Volume IV Arthropoda: Insecta Teilband / Part 35: 491 pp. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York. *Nielsen, E.S. (1987). The recently discovered primitive (non-Ditrysian) family Palaephatidae (Lepidoptera) in Australia. ''Invertebrate Taxonomy'', 1(2): 201–229. *Wiegmann, B.M., Regier, J.C. and Mitter, C. (2002). Combined molecular and morphological evidence on the phylogeny of the earliest lepidopteran lineages. ''Zoologica Scripta'', 31(1): 67–81.

Sources

*''Firefly Encyclopedia of Insects and Spiders'', edited by Christopher O'Toole, , 2002

External links

Tree of Life''Azaleodes micronipha'' Australian Moths OnlineHead
Moth families {{Palaephatoidea-stub