''Micropterix'' is a
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 small primitive metallic moths, in the
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...
order
Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to:
* Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood
* Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...
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 ...
within the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
Micropterigidae
Micropterigoidea is the superfamily of "mandibulate archaic moths", all placed in the single family Micropterigidae, containing currently about twenty living genera. They are considered the most primitive extant lineage of lepidoptera (Kristense ...
. The name was
raised by the German
entomologist
Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...
,
Jacob Hübner
Jacob Hübner (20 June 1761 – 13 September 1826, in Augsburg) was a German entomologist. He was the author of ''Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge'' (1796–1805), a founding work of entomology.
Scientific career
Hübner was the author of '' ...
in 1825 and comes from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
for ''mikros'', little and ''pterux'', a wing. The moths are distributed across
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, south to
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
and east as far as
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
.
Description
The moths are small, with the forewing ranging in size from 2.5 mm to 5.5 mm, and at rest they are held at a steep angle, tent-like over the body. Unique among the lepidoptera, the moths have chewing mouthparts rather than a
proboscis
A proboscis () is an elongated appendage from the head of an animal, either a vertebrate or an invertebrate. In invertebrates, the term usually refers to tubular mouthparts used for feeding and sucking. In vertebrates, a proboscis is an elong ...
and are most easily seen feeding, often in large aggregations, on the pollen of the flowers of many herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees.
Eggs are
translucent
In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions a ...
white and laid amongst vegetation on the surface of the soil.
The life history of the early stages is more or less unknown but larva have been found in the young shoots of plants, or obtained by the funnel extraction of woodland turf samples, from a depth of up to 10 cm. It appears there are only three
instar
An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ass ...
s and they probably feed on minute particles of leaf-litter or possibly fungal
hyphae
A hypha (; ) is a long, branching, filamentous structure of a fungus, oomycete, or actinobacterium. In most fungi, hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth, and are collectively called a mycelium.
Structure
A hypha consists of one or ...
.
For many species the pupa is unknown, but of those found it is within a tough silken cocoon.
Edward Meyrick
Edward Meyrick (25 November 1854, in Ramsbury – 31 March 1938, at Thornhanger, Marlborough) was an English schoolmaster and amateur entomologist. He was an expert on microlepidoptera and some consider him one of the founders of modern micr ...
describes the moth as:
[Meyrick, E., 1895 ''A Handbook of British Lepidoptera'' MacMillan, London ]pdf
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
Keys and descriptionMandibles developed. No tongue. Labial palpi obsolete. Posterior tibiae with spurs placed in groups of bristles. Forewings: vein 7 to costa, vein 11 connected by bar with vein 12, 12 giving rise to an additional vein (13) about middle. Hindwings as forewings, but vein 13 usually absent.
Species
''Micropterix'' contains the following species:
*''
Micropterix abchasiae
''Micropterix abchasiae'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae that was described by Aleksei Zagulyaev in 1983. Retrieved April 21, 2018. It is only found in Abkhazia in Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgi ...
''
*''
Micropterix agenjoi
''Micropterix agenjoi'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae, which was first described by Pierre Viette
Pierre E. L. Viette (29 June 1921 – 30 April 2011) was a French entomologist. He attended university in Dijon dur ...
''
*''
Micropterix aglaella
''Micropterix aglaella'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae.It is found in southern France, south-western Switzerland and northern Italy.
Taxonomy
''Adela aglaella'' Duponchel, 1840: 627: According to Minet (in litt.) t ...
''
*''
Micropterix algeriella
''Micropterix algeriella'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae. It was described by Émile Louis Ragonot in 1889 Retrieved April 21, 2018. and is endemic to Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orth ...
''
*''
Micropterix allionella
''Micropterix allionella'' is a moth of the family Micropterigidae. It was described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1794.
Distribution
This species is present in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgar ...
''
*''
Micropterix amasiella
''Micropterix amasiella'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae that was described by Otto Staudinger in 1880, Retrieved April 21, 2018. and is endemic to Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of T ...
''
*''
Micropterix amsella
''Micropterix amsella'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae, first described by John Heath in 1975 and is endemic to Croatia.
The wingspan
The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from ...
''
*†''
Micropterix anglica
''Micropterix anglica'' is an extinct species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae which was described by Edmund A Jarzembowski in 1980.
Fossil remains, dated to the Oligocene, have been found on the Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wigh ...
''
*''
Micropterix aruncella
''Micropterix aruncella'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae, which is distributed throughout Europe. The imago was Species description, first described by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli in 1763. This species is one of the bes ...
''
*''
Micropterix aureatella
''Micropterix aureatella'' is a moth of the family Micropterigidae found in the Palearctic realm (from Europe to Japan), except for North Africa.
Taxonomy
The moth was first described from a specimen found in Carniola, present-day Slovenia, by ...
''
*''
Micropterix aureocapilla
''Micropterix aureocapilla'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae. It was described by John Heath in 1986, and is known only from the type locality, El Hadjar in Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (center ...
''
*''
Micropterix aureofasciella
''Micropterix aureofasciella'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae which was described by Heath in 1986. It is only known from Algeria, where it occurs along the coastal belt from Algiers to Skikda
Skikda ( ar, سكي ...
''
*''
Micropterix aureopennella''
*''
Micropterix aureoviridella
''Micropterix aureoviridella'' is a moth of the family Micropterigidae found in Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. It was first described by Gabriel Höfner in 1898.
The wingspan is about . Adults are on wing ...
''
*''
Micropterix avarcella''
*''Micropterix balcanica''
Heath (manuscript name)
*''
Micropterix berytella''
*''
Micropterix calthella
''Micropterix calthella'', the marsh marigold moth, is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae. It is found in damp habitats throughout Europe (except for the far south) and is also distributed eastwards to central Siberia. It w ...
''
*''
Micropterix carthaginiensis''
*''
Micropterix cassinella''
*''
Micropterix completella''
*''
Micropterix conjunctella''
*''
Micropterix constantinella''
*''
Micropterix corcyrella''
*''
Micropterix cornuella''
*''
Micropterix croatica''
*''
Micropterix cyaneochrysa''
*''
Micropterix cypriensis''
*''
Micropterix eatoniella''
*''
Micropterix elegans''
*''
Micropterix emiliensis''
*''
Micropterix erctella''
*''
Micropterix facetella''
*''Micropterix fasciata''
Heath (manuscript name)
*''
Micropterix fenestrellensis''
*''
Micropterix garganoensis''
*''
Micropterix gaudiella''
*†''
Micropterix gertraudae''
*''
Micropterix granatensis''
*''
Micropterix hartigi''
*''
Micropterix herminiella''
*''
Micropterix huemeri''
*''
Micropterix hyrcana''
*''
Micropterix ibericella''
*''
Micropterix igaloensis''
*†''
Micropterix immensipalpa''
*''
Micropterix imperfectella''
*''Micropterix inornatus''
Heath (manuscript name)
*''
Micropterix islamella''
*''
Micropterix isobasella''
*''
Micropterix italica''
*''
Micropterix jabalmoussae''
*''
Micropterix jacobella''
*(''
Micropterix jeanneli'')
(either treated as a synonym or valid species)
*''
Micropterix kardamylensis''
*''
Micropterix klimeschi''
*''
Micropterix lagodechiella''
*''
Micropterix lakoniensis''
*''
Micropterix lambesiella''
*''
Micropterix longicornuella''
*''
Micropterix mansuetella''
*''
Micropterix maschukella''
*''
Micropterix minimella''
*''
Micropterix montanella''
*''
Micropterix monticolella''
*''
Micropterix montosiella''
*''
Micropterix myrtetella''
*''
Micropterix osthelderi''
*''
Micropterix paykullella
''Micropterix paykullella'' is a species of moth belonging to the family Micropterigidae. It was described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1794. It is distributed locally across the whole Alps, occurring in France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.
...
''
*''
Micropterix purpureopennella''
*''
Micropterix rablensis''
*''
Micropterix renatae''
*''
Micropterix rothenbachii''
*''
Micropterix schaefferi''
*''
Micropterix sicanella''
*''
Micropterix sikhotealinensis''
*''Micropterix staudinger''
Heath (manuscript name)
*''
Micropterix stuebneri''
*''
Micropterix trifasciella''
*''
Micropterix trinacriella''
*''
Micropterix tunbergella''
*''
Micropterix turkmeniella''
*''
Micropterix tuscaniensis''
*''
Micropterix uxoria''
*''
Micropterix vulturensis''
*''
Micropterix wockei''
*''
Micropterix zangheriella''
References
External links
*
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q746814
Micropterigidae
Moth genera
Taxa named by Jacob Hübner