The Exoporia are a group of primitive

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...

comprising the superfamilies

Mnesarchaeoidea Mnesarchaeoidea is a superfamily of "New Zealand primitive moths" containing one family, Mnesarchaeidae and a two genera, ''Mnesarchaea'', and ''Mnesarchella,'' both of which are endemic to New Zealand. Taxonomy and systematics Mnesarchaeoid ...

and

Hepialoidea The Hepialoidea are the superfamily of "ghost moths" and "swift moths". Fossils Fossil Hepialoidea appear to be few. ''Prohepialus'' (possibly Hepialidae) has been described from the about 35-million-year-old Bembridge marls of Isle of Wight. ...

.Nielsen, E.S., Robinson, G.S. and Wagner, D.L. 2000. Ghost-moths of the world: a global inventory and bibliography of the Exoporia (Mnesarchaeoidea and Hepialoidea) (Lepidoptera) ''Journal of Natural History'', 34(6): 823-878. They are a natural group or

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

. Exoporia is 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 t ...

of the lepidopteran

infraorder 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 ...

Heteroneura Heteroneura is a natural group (or clade) in the insect order Lepidoptera that comprises over 99% of all butterflies and moths. This is the sister group of the infraorder Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ran ...

. They are characterised by their unique female reproductive system which has an external groove between the ostium bursae and the

ovipore An ovipore is a pore-like sexual organ of a female insect that is inseminated by the spermatophores ejected by the aedeagus of a male insect during copulation. The spermatophores that pass through the ovipore are stored in most insect species i ...

by which the

sperm Sperm is the male reproductive cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm with a tail known as a flagellum, whi ...

is transferred to the egg rather than having the mating and egg-laying parts of the

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...

with a common opening (

cloaca In animal anatomy, a cloaca ( ), plural cloacae ( or ), is the posterior orifice that serves as the only opening for the digestive, reproductive, and urinary tracts (if present) of many vertebrate animals. All amphibians, reptiles and birds, a ...

) as in other nonditrysian

moths Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

, or with separate openings linked internally by a "ductus seminalis" as in the

Ditrysia The Ditrysia are a natural group or clade of insects in the lepidopteran order containing both butterflies and moths. They are so named because the female has two distinct sexual openings: one for mating, and the other for laying eggs (in contra ...

. See Kristensen (1999: 57) for other exoporian characteristics.

References

*IV Arthropoda: Insecta Teilband / Part 35: 491 pp. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York.

External links

Tree of Life

Abstract
Moth taxonomy Insect infraorders Neolepidoptera {{moth-stub

See also

References

External links