The Erebidae are a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

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 in the superfamily Noctuoidea. The family is among the largest families of moths by species count and contains a wide variety of well-known macromoth groups. The family includes the underwings (''

Catocala ''Catocala'' is a generally Holarctic genus of moths in the family Erebidae. The genus was erected by Franz von Paula Schrank in 1802. The moths are commonly known as underwing moths or simply underwings. These terms are sometimes used for a fe ...

''); litter moths ( Herminiinae); tiger, lichen, and wasp moths ( Arctiinae); tussock moths ( Lymantriinae), including the arctic woolly bear moth ('' Gynaephora groenlandica''); piercing moths (

Calpinae The Calpinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae described by Jean Baptiste Boisduval in 1840. This subfamily includes many species of moths that have a pointed and barbed proboscis adapted to piercing the skins of fruit to feed on ju ...

and others); micronoctuoid moths ( Micronoctuini); snout moths ( Hypeninae); and zales, though many of these common names can also refer to moths outside the Erebidae (for example,

crambid snout moths The Crambidae are the grass moth family of lepidopterans. They are variable in appearance, the nominal subfamily Crambinae (grass moths) taking up closely folded postures on grass stems where they are inconspicuous, while other subfamilies inclu ...

). Some of the erebid moths are called owlets. The sizes of the adults range from among the largest of all moths (> wingspan in the black witch) to the smallest of the macromoths ( wingspan in some of the Micronoctuini). The coloration of the adults spans the full range of dull, drab, and camouflaged (e.g., '' Zale lunifera'' and litter moths) to vivid, contrasting, and colorful (e.g., Aganainae and tiger moths). The moths are found on all continents except Antarctica.

Subfamilies

* Aganainae *

Anobinae The Anobinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae described by Jeremy Daniel Holloway in 2005. Common morphological characteristics of Anobine moths include a dark head and prothoracic collar, lighter color on the thorax, and either bi ...

* Arctiinae – tiger, lichen, and wasp moths * Boletobiinae *

– piercing moths *

Erebinae The Erebinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae erected by William Elford Leach in 1815. Erebine moths are found on all continents except Antarctica, but reach their greatest diversity in the tropics. While the exact number of speci ...

– underwings and kin * Eulepidotinae * Herminiinae – litter moths * Hypeninae – snout moths * Hypenodinae – includes the micronoctuoids *

Hypocalinae Hypocalinae is a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae The Erebidae are a family of moths in the superfamily Noctuoidea. The family is among the largest families of moths by species count and contains a wide variety of well-known macromo ...

* Lymantriinae – tussock moths * Pangraptinae * Rivulinae *

Scolecocampinae The Scolecocampinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae. The taxon was erected by Augustus Radcliffe Grote in 1883. Taxonomy Moths in the subfamily typically have an enclosed, sac-like tympanal pocket, split genital claspers with "co ...

* Scoliopteryginae – piercing moths * Tinoliinae *

Toxocampinae The Toxocampinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae. Moths in the subfamily typically have a primitive form of genital claspers similar to those of some subfamilies of the Noctuidae. Taxonomy Morphological analysis previously classi ...

Classification

Among the Noctuoidea, the Erebidae can be broadly defined by the wing characteristics of the adults with support from phylogenetic studies. The cubital forewing vein, which runs outward from the base of a wing to the outer margin, splits into two (bifid), three (trifid), or four (quadrifid) veins from the medial area to the outer margin. These split veins are named M2, M3, CuA1, and CuA2 in order toward the inner margin. A trifid forewing has either a reduced or vestigial M2 vein or the M2 vein does not connect to the cubital veins, while M2 is as thick as M3 and connects or nearly connects to M3 in a quadrifid forewing. The same splitting of the hindwing cubital vein has analogous terms bifine, trifine, and quadrifine. The Erebidae typically have quadrifid forewings and quadrifine hindwings, though the Micronoctuini are exceptional with their bifine hindwings. Among the related families, most Erebidae are quadrifid moths like the Euteliidae, Nolidae, and

Noctuidae The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family of moths. They are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of the clades are constantly changing, along with the other ...

and unlike the trifid

Oenosandridae Oenosandridae is a family of Australian noctuoid moths. Genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classificati ...

and Notodontidae. And among the quadrifid moths, the Erebidae have quadrifine hindwings like the typical Nolidae and Euteliidae and unlike the typical

Phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups ...

studies in the present century have helped to clarify the relationships between the structurally diverse lineages within the Noctuoidea and within the Erebidae. Morphological studies had led to a classification in which the monophyletic Arctiinae, Lymantriinae, and Micronoctuini were treated as families, and the other erebid lineages were largely grouped within the

. Recent studies combining genetic characteristics with the morphological ones revealed that the former Noctuidae were

paraphyletic In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In ...

, and some of the lineages within the Noctuidae were more closely related to the Arctiinae, Lymantriinae, and Micronoctuini families than to the other lineages within the Noctuidae. The determination of these phylogenetic relationships has led to the present classification scheme in which several clades were rearranged while kept mostly intact and others were split apart. The Erebidae are one

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gr ...

family among six in the Noctuoidea. A more strictly defined family

is also monophyletic, but the family lacks the quadrifine moths now placed as part of the Erebidae. Some subfamilies of the Noctuidae, such as the Herminiinae, were moved as a whole to Erebidae. Other subfamilies, including the Acontiinae and

, were each split apart. The Arctiinae became an erebid subfamily placed next to the closely related Herminiinae. The Lymantriinae became another erebid subfamily placed near the Pangraptinae. The rank of the Micronoctuini was changed from family to tribe to include the clade as a lineage within the Hypenodinae. The Erebidae are currently divided into 18 subfamilies, some of which are strongly supported by phylogenetic analysis and may persist through further study, while others are weakly supported and may be redefined again.

References

External links

Images of Erebidae moths in New Zealand

Images of Erebidae in Bugguide.net
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2068481 Moth families