''Dudgeonea'' is a small
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
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 and the only genus of its family, the Dudgeoneidae. It includes six species distributed sparsely across the
Old World
The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...
from Africa and Madagascar to Australia and
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
.
Biology
The genus is poorly studied, but the Australian species, ''
Dudgeonea actinias'', tunnels in trunks of ''Canthium attenuatum'' (
Rubiaceae) and the
pupa
A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...
is extruded like many other internal feeders.
[Common, I.F.B. 1990. ''Moths of Australia''. Brill Academic Publishers. 535 pp.]
References
External links
Australian Moths Online
Moth genera
{{Cossoidea-stub