The Erebidae are a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

s in the superfamily

Noctuoidea Noctuoidea is the superfamily of noctuid (Latin "night owl") or "owlet" moths, and has more than 70,000 described species, the largest number of any Lepidopteran superfamily. Its classification has not yet reached a satisfactory or stable stat ...

. The family is among the largest families of moths by species count and contains a wide variety of well-known macromoth groups. The family includes the underwings ('' Catocala''); litter moths ( Herminiinae); tiger, lichen, footman and wasp moths (

Arctiinae The Arctiinae (formerly called the family Arctiidae) are a large and diverse subfamily of moths with around 11,000 species found all over the world, including 6,000 neotropical species.Scoble, MJ. (1995). ''The Lepidoptera: Form, Function and D ...

); tussock moths ( Lymantriinae), including the arctic woolly bear moth ('' Gynaephora groenlandica''); fruit-piercing moths ( Calpinae and others); micronoctuoid moths ( Micronoctuini); snout moths ( Hypeninae); and zales, though many of these common names can also refer to moths outside the Erebidae (for example, crambid snout moths). Some of the erebid moths are called owlets. The sizes of the adults range from among the largest of all moths (around wingspan in the white witch) to the smallest of the macromoths ( wingspan in some of the Micronoctuini). The coloration of the adults spans the full range of dull, drab, and camouflaged (e.g., '' Zale lunifera'' and litter moths) to vivid, contrasting, and colorful (e.g., Aganainae and tiger moths). The moths are found on all continents except Antarctica.

Subfamilies

* Aganainae * Anobinae *

– tiger, lichen, and wasp moths * Boletobiinae * Calpinae – piercing moths *

Erebinae The Erebinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae erected by William Elford Leach in 1815. Erebine moths are found on all continents except Antarctica, but reach their greatest diversity in the tropics. While the exact number of specie ...

– underwings and kin * Eulepidotinae * Herminiinae – litter moths * Hypeninae – snout moths *

Hypenodinae The Hypenodinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae. Adult moths of most species of this subfamily lack small, ocellus, simple eyes near the large, compound eyes and have quadrifine (four-veined) hindwing cells. The Micronoctuini, mi ...

– includes the micronoctuoids * Hypocalinae * Lymantriinae – tussock moths * Pangraptinae * Rivulinae * Scolecocampinae * Scoliopteryginae – piercing moths * Tinoliinae *

Toxocampinae The Toxocampinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae. Moths in the subfamily typically have a primitive form of genital claspers similar to those of some subfamilies of the Noctuidae. Taxonomy Morphological analysis previously classi ...

Description

Adult moths of Erebidae have quadrifid forewings and usually quadrifine hindwings, meaning that each wing includes a cubital vein that splits into four (explained further in the Classification section). The tribe Micronoctuini instead has bifine hindwings (meaning this same vein splits into two). Aside from this, adult Erebidae usually have an unscaled clypeofrons and broad forewings, and the hindwings often have patterns. Scoliopteryginae, Calpinae and some Erebinae have modified proboscises to pierce fruit skins. Lymantriinae and some

Arctiina The Arctiina are a subtribe of moths in the family Erebidae. Taxonomy The subtribe was previously treated as a higher-level taxon, the tribe Arctiini, within the lichen and tiger moth family Arctiidae. The ranks of the family and its subdivisio ...

(Arctiinae) instead have a highly reduced proboscis. The overall appearance may be colourful (e.g. Arctiinae, Aganainae) or cryptic (e.g. Herminiinae). Larvae are usually smooth in appearance, but larvae of Arctiinae (woolly bears) and Lymantriinae are hairy. Larvae of Arctiinae and Lymantriinae have fully developed prolegs, Aganainae and Herminiinae have fully developed or slightly reduced prolegs, and prolegs in some other subfamilies are reduced or absent as an adaptation to

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...

living (semi-loopers).

Ecology

Adults of some Erebidae pierce fruit to suck out juices (leading them to be called "fruit-piercing moths"), and those of '' Calyptra'' can also pierce mammalian skin to suck out blood (hence "vampire moths"). Larvae are mostly herbivorous, like most lepidopteran larvae, and different taxa prefer different plants.

Lithosiini The Lithosiini are a tribe of lichen moths in the family Erebidae. The taxon was described by Gustaf Johan Billberg in 1820. Systematics The tribe was previously treated as a higher-level taxon, the subfamily Lithosiinae, within the lichen a ...

(Arctiinae) larvae are unusual in feeding on algae and lichens (hence "lichen moths"). Most Herminiinae larvae feed on dead or withered leaves (hence "litter moths"), rather than living leaves.

Classification

Among the

, the Erebidae can be broadly defined by the wing characteristics of the adults with support from phylogenetic studies. The cubital forewing vein, which runs outward from the base of a wing to the outer margin, splits into two (bifid), three (trifid), or four (quadrifid) veins from the medial area to the outer margin. These split veins are named M2, M3, CuA1, and CuA2 in order toward the inner margin. A trifid forewing has either a reduced or vestigial M2 vein or the M2 vein does not connect to the cubital veins, while M2 is as thick as M3 and connects or nearly connects to M3 in a quadrifid forewing. The same splitting of the hindwing cubital vein has analogous terms bifine, trifine, and quadrifine. The Erebidae typically have quadrifid forewings and quadrifine hindwings, though the Micronoctuini are exceptional with their bifine hindwings. Among the related families, most Erebidae are quadrifid moths like the

Euteliidae Euteliidae is a family of moths in the superfamily Noctuoidea Noctuoidea is the superfamily of noctuid (Latin "night owl") or "owlet" moths, and has more than 70,000 described species, the largest number of any Lepidopteran superfamily. Its ...

Nolidae Nolidae is a family of moths with about 1,700 described species worldwide. They are mostly small with dull coloration, the main distinguishing feature being a silk cocoon with a vertical exit slit. The group is sometimes known as tuft moths, aft ...

, and

Noctuidae The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family (biology), family of moths. Taxonomically, they are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of the clades are constantly ...

and unlike the trifid Oenosandridae and

Notodontidae Notodontidae is a family of moths with approximately 3,800 known species. The family was described by James Francis Stephens in 1829. Moths of this family are found in all parts of the world, but they are most concentrated in tropical areas, es ...

. And among the quadrifid moths, the Erebidae have quadrifine hindwings like the typical

and

and unlike the typical

Phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

studies in the present century have helped to clarify the relationships between the structurally diverse lineages within the

and within the Erebidae. Morphological studies had led to a classification in which the monophyletic

, Lymantriinae, and Micronoctuini were treated as families, and the other erebid lineages were largely grouped within the

. Recent studies combining genetic characteristics with the morphological ones revealed that the former Noctuidae were

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

, and some of the lineages within the Noctuidae were more closely related to the

, Lymantriinae, and Micronoctuini families than to the other lineages within the Noctuidae. The determination of these phylogenetic relationships has led to the present classification scheme in which several clades were rearranged while kept mostly intact and others were split apart. The Erebidae are one

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

family among six in the

. A more strictly defined family

is also monophyletic, but the family lacks the quadrifine moths now placed as part of the Erebidae. Some subfamilies of the Noctuidae, such as the Herminiinae, were moved as a whole to Erebidae. Other subfamilies, including the Acontiinae and Calpinae, were each split apart. The

became an erebid subfamily placed next to the closely related Herminiinae. The Lymantriinae became another erebid subfamily placed near the Pangraptinae. The rank of the Micronoctuini was changed from family to tribe to include the clade as a lineage within the

. The Erebidae are currently divided into 18 subfamilies, some of which are strongly supported by phylogenetic analysis and may persist through further study, while others are weakly supported and may be redefined again.

References

External links

Images of Erebidae moths in New Zealand

Images of Erebidae in Bugguide.net
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2068481 Moth families