''Heterobathmia pseuderiocrania'', the southern beech moth, is a species of

moth 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 ...

belonging to the family

Heterobathmiidae ''Heterobathmia'' is a genus of Lepidoptera. It is the only genus in the suborder Heterobathmiina, as well as in the superfamily Heterobathmioidea and in the family Heterobathmiidae. Primitive, day-flying, metallic moths confined to southern So ...

. It was first described by Niels Peder Kristensen and

Ebbe Nielsen Ebbe Schmidt Nielsen (7 June 1950 – 7 March 2001) was a Danish entomologist influential in systematics and Lepidoptera research, and an early proponent of biodiversity informatics. The journal ''Invertebrate Systematics'' was established with si ...

in 1979. It is found in temperate South America, including

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. The mouthparts are primitive and well adapted for collecting and grinding pollen of ''

Nothofagus ''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Gui ...

'' species. The five piece maxillary palps display specialized structures which enable the collection of pollen.

References

Moths described in 1979 Moths of South America Fauna of Argentina Heterobathmiina Taxa named by Ebbe Nielsen {{Moth-stub