Amphientomidae is a
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
of
Psocodea
Psocodea is a taxonomic group of insects comprising the bark lice, book lice and parasitic lice. It was formerly considered a superorder, but is now generally considered by entomologists as an order. Despite the greatly differing appearance of ...
(formerly
Psocoptera
Psocoptera are a paraphyletic group of insects that are commonly known as booklice, barklice or barkflies. The name Psocoptera has been replaced with Psocodea in recent literature, with the inclusion of the former order Phthiraptera into Psocode ...
) belonging to the
suborder
Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...
Troctomorpha
Troctomorpha is one of the three major suborders of Psocodea (formerly Psocoptera)(barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice), alongside Psocomorpha and Trogiomorpha. There are more than 30 families and 5,800 described species in Troctomorpha. The ...
.
The presence of scales on their wings gives them a superficial resemblance to the unrelated family
Lepidopsocidae
Lepidopsocidae are an insect family of bark lice belonging to the suborder Trogiomorpha. Colloquially, Lepidopsocidae are referred to as the Scaly-winged Barklice. There are more than 220 species described worldwide. Phylogenetic DNA analysis of ...
(within
Trogiomorpha
Trogiomorpha is one of the three major suborders of barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice in the order Psocodea (formerly Psocoptera), alongside Troctomorpha and Psocomorpha. There are about 8 families and more than 430 described species in Tr ...
), and both families can pass for
microlepidoptera
Microlepidoptera (micromoths) is an artificial (i.e., unranked and not monophyletic) grouping of moth families, commonly known as the 'smaller moths' (micro, Lepidoptera). These generally have wingspans of under 20 mm, and are thus harder to ...
to the untrained eye. The family comprises 100 species arranged in twenty genera.
References
*Lienhard, C. & Smithers, C. N. 2002. Psocoptera (Insecta): World Catalogue and Bibliography. Instrumenta Biodiversitatis, vol. 5. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Genève.
Psocoptera families
Troctomorpha
{{Psocoptera-stub