Palaephatoidea

Taxobox
name = Palaephatoidea
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
superordo = Amphiesmenoptera
ordo = Lepidoptera
subordo = Glossata
cohorto = Myoglossata
subcohorto = Neolepidoptera
infraordo= Heteroneura
section= Heteroneura
superfamilia = Palaephatoidea
familia = Palaephatidae
diversity = About 60 species
diversity_link = Lepidopteran diversity
subdivision_ranks = Genus
subdivision = "Apophatus" "Azaleodes" "Metaphatus" "Palaephatus" "Plesiophatus" "Ptyssoptera" "Sesommata"

Palaephatoidea is a superfamily of insects in the Lepidoptera order with a single family, Palaephatidae with seven known genera. These "Gondwanaland moths" exhibit a disjunct distribution occurring mainly in South America (Davis, 1986), with four species in eastern Australia and Tasmania and one in South Africa (Davis, 1999). The larvae spin together leaves of Proteaceae ("Ptyssoptera") [http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/projects/hostplants/browse.dsml?searchPageURL=browse.dsml&Family=Palaephatidae&Genus=&Species=&Country=&sort=Family] or Verbenaceae ("Azaleodes") (Nielsen, 1987).
Palaephatoidea, a typical monotrysian group, is one two main candidates as the sister group of most of the Lepidoptera, the Ditrysia (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. doi:10.1046/j.0300-3256.2001.00091.x

ources

*"Firefly Encyclopedia of Insects and Spiders", edited by Christopher O'Toole, ISBN 1-55297-612-2, 2002

External links

* [http://tolweb.org/Palaephatidae Tree of Life]
* [http://www.ento.csiro.au/gallery/moths/Palaephatidae "Azaleodes micronipha" Australian Moths Online]
* [http://leptree.net/drupal/Palaephatidae_head Head]