Neopseustidae is a small family of day and night-flying "archaic bell moths" in the order Lepidoptera. They are classified into their own superfamily Neopseustoidea and infraorder Neopseustina. Four genera are known. These primitive moths are restricted to South America and Southeast Asia. Their biology is unknown (Davis 1975; Davis and Nielsen 1980, 1984; Kristensen, 1999). ''Nematocentropus'' appears to be the most primitive genus occurring in

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

, China. Three species of ''Neopseustis'' are distributed from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, whilst ''Synempora andesae'' and three species of '' Apoplania'' occur in southern South America (Kristensen, 1999: 53-54). The morphology of the antennae (Faucheux 2005ab; Faucheux et al., 2006) and the proboscis (Kristensen and Nielsen 1981) has been studied in detail.

References

*Davis, D. R. (1975). Systematics and zoogeography of the family Neopseustidae with the proposal of a new superfamily (Lepidoptera: Neopseustoidea). ''Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology'', 210: 1-45. *Davis, D. R. and Nielsen, E .S. (1980). Description of a new genus and two new species of Neopseustidae from South America, with discussion of phylogeny and biological observations (Lepidoptera: Neopseustoidea). ''Steenstrupia'', 6(16): 253-289. *Davis, D. R. and Nielsen, E.S. (1984). The South American neopseustid genus ''Apoplania'' Davis: a new species, distribution records and notes on adult behaviour (Lepidoptera: Neopseustina). ''Entomologica Scandinavica'', 15(4): 497-509. *Faucheux, M.J. (2005a). Les sensilles basiconiques gaufrées à base double ou triple de l’antenne du papillon sud-américain, ''Apoplania valdiviana'' Davis et Nielsen 1984 (Lepidoptera: Neopseustidae): distribution et importance numerique. ''Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Naturelles de l’Ouest de la France'', 27(1). *Faucheux, M.J., (2005b). Note brève: Evolution d’un type de sensillaire antennaire dans la famille des Neopseustidae (Lepidoptera: Glossata), la sensille basiconique large et enflée. ''Bulletin de la Société des Sciences Naturelles de l’Ouest de la France'', 27(1). *Faucheux, M.J., Kristensen, N.P. & Yen, S.-H. (2006) The antennae of neopseustid moths: morphology and phylogenetic implications, with special reference to the sensilla (Insecta, Lepidoptera, Neopseustidae). ''Zoologischer Anzeiger'': 245: 131-142. *Kristensen, N.P., Nielsen E.S. (1981). Double-tube proboscis configuration in Neopseustid moths (Lepidoptera: Neopseustidae). ''International Journal of Insect Morphology and Embryology'': 10: 483-486. *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.

Sources

*''Firefly Encyclopedia of Insects and Spiders'', edited by Christopher O'Toole, , 2002

External links

Tree of Life''Apoplania penai'' Davis and Nielsen, 1984
Moth families {{Neopseustidae-stub