Lophocoronoidea is a superfamily of insects in the order
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 ...
. There is a single extant genus, ''Lophocorona'', in the family Lophocoronidae. These are small, primitive nocturnal moths restricted to Australia whose biology is largely unknown (Common, 1990; Kristensen and Nielsen, 1996; Kristensen, 1999).
A fossil genus ''
Acanthocorona'' is known from the
Burmese amber of Myanmar, dating to the early
Cenomanian
The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...
stage of the
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...
, approximately 99 million years ago.
Fossil species
* ''
Acanthocorona'' Mey, Léger & Lien, 2021
** ''A. skalskii'' (type)
** ''A. muelleri''
** ''A. bowangi''
** ''A. wichardi''
** ''A. kuranishii''
** ''A. sattleri''
** ''A. spinifera''
References
*Common, I.F.B., (1990). ''Moths of Australia''. 535 pages.
*Kristensen, N.P. (1999). The homoneurous Glossata. Ch. 5, pp. 51–64 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.
*Nielsen, E. S. and Kristensen, N. P. (1996). The Australian moth family Lophocoronidae and the basal phylogeny of the Lepidoptera Glossata. ''Invertebrate Taxonomy'', 10: 1199-130
Abstract
Sources
*''Firefly Encyclopedia of Insects and Spiders'', edited by Christopher O'Toole, , 2002
External links
Tree of Life*
Lepidoptera superfamilies
Moths of Australia
Endemic fauna of Australia
Coelolepida
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