Cimeliidae, the gold moths (formerly known as Axiidae), is a family 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 ...

s that is now placed in the

macroheterocera The Macroheterocera are a well supported clade of moths that are closely related to butterflies and other macro-moths. Taxonomy The Macroheterocera includes the following superfamilies: * Mimallonoidea – sack bearers (variously included in b ...

n superfamily

Drepanoidea Drepanoidea is the superfamily of "hook tip moths". See Minet and Scoble (1999) for a comprehensive overview. References * Minet, J. and Scoble, M.J. (1999). The Drepanoid/Geometroid Assemblage. Ch. 17 in Kristensen, N.P. (Ed.). ''Lepidoptera, ...

, although previously placed in its own superfamily. Uniquely, they have a pair of pocket-like organs on the seventh abdominal

spiracle Spiracle or spiraculum may refer to: * Spiracle (arthropods), opening in the exoskeletons of some arthropods * Spiracle (vertebrates), openings on the surface of some vertebrates * Spiraculum, a genus of land snails in family Cyclophoridae Cycl ...

of the adult moth which are only possibly sound receptive organs. They are quite large and brightly coloured moths that occur in southern Europe and feed on species of ''

Euphorbia ''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...

''. Sometimes they are attracted to light. The family was first described by

Pierre Chrétien Pierre Chrétien (1846 – 15 June 1934, in Nay, Pyrénées-Atlantiques) was a French entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera. He was a member of Société entomologique de France. ''Trifurcula chretieni'' Z. & A. Lastuvka & van Nieukerken, ...

in 1916.

References

* Yen, S.-H.; Minet, J. (2007)
"Cimelioidea: a new superfamily name for the gold moths (Lepidoptera: Glossata)"
''Zoological Studies''. 46 (3): 262–271.

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Further reading

References

External links