''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 South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
, the adults eat the 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 ...
'' or
southern beech
''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 ...
and the larvae
mine the leaves
A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths (Lepidoptera), sawflies ( Symphyta, the mother clade of wasps) ...
(Kristensen, 1983, 1999). Most known species are undescribed (but see Kristensen and Nielsen, 1978, 1998).
References
*
* Kristensen, N.P. (1999). The non-Glossatan Moths. Ch. 4, pp. 41–49 in Kristensen, N.P. (Ed.). ''Lepidoptera, Moths and Butterflies''. Volume 1: Evolution, Systematics, and Biogeography. Handbuch der Zoologie. Eine Naturgeschichte der Stämme des Tierreiches / Handbook of Zoology. A Natural History of the phyla of the Animal Kingdom. Band / Volume IV Arthropoda: Insecta Teilband / Part 35: 491 pp. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York.
* Kristensen, N. P. and Nielsen, E.S. (1979). A new subfamily of micropterigid moths from South America. A contribution to the morphology and phylogeny of the Micropterigidae, with a generic catalogue of the family (Lepidoptera: Zeugloptera). ''Steenstrupia'', 5(7):69-147.
* Kristensen, N. P. and Nielsen, E.S. (1998). ''Heterobathmia valvifer'' n.sp.: a moth with large apparent 'ovipositor valves' (Lepidoptera, Heterobathmiidae). ''Steenstrupia'', 24: 141–156.
External links
Tree of Life*
pdf Mouthpartspdf Phylogeny
Moth genera
Heterobathmiina
Taxa named by Ebbe Nielsen
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