Alucita

Largest genus of the many-plumed moths (Alucitidae) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alucita is the largest genus of many-plumed moths (family Alucitidae); it is also the type genus of its family and the disputed superfamily Alucitoidea. This genus occurs almost worldwide and contains about 180 species as of 2011; new species are still being described and discovered regularly.[citation needed] Formerly, many similar moths of superfamilies Alucitoidea, Copromorphoidea and Pterophoroidea were also placed in Alucita.[citation needed]

Phylum:Arthropoda
Class:Insecta
Family:Alucitidae
Quick facts Scientific classification, Type species ...
Alucita
Twenty-plume moth (A. hexadactyla) imago
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Alucitidae
Genus: Alucita
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Alucita hexadactyla
Linnaeus, 1758
Synonyms [1]
  • Aleucita (lapsus)
  • Allucita (lapsus)
  • Alucitina Heydenreich, 1851[Note 1]
  • Euchiradia Hübner, 1826
  • Orneodes Latreille, 1796
  • Orneodus (lapsus)
  • Rhipidophora Hübner, 1822
Close

The genus Alucita was established by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as a subgenus of Phalaena, Linné's "wastebin genus" for moths[citation needed]. Johan Christian Fabricius in 1775 seems to have been the first author to consider Alucita a genus in its own right, and it remains so until today.[citation needed] However, some subsequent authors[who?] believed Linnaeus' name to be invalid, and established alternative names for this genus, but, while the oldest of these, Pierre André Latreille's Orneodes, was used instead of Alucita for a long time, all these subsequent names are today recognized as junior synonyms.[1]

Species

The species of Alucita include:[2]

+ Alucita sedlaceki Ustjuzhanin & Kovtunovich, 2024

Notes

  1. Some cite Zeller, 1841 as author; this is incorrect, as Zeller's "Alucitina" is a junior synonym of the family Alucitidae, not the genus Alucita.[citation needed]
  2. Preoccupied by Diakonoff's species and in need of renaming.[citation needed]

References

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI