__NOTOC__ The Tineodidae or false plume moths are a

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 ...

moths 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 ...

with in some cases unusually modified

wings A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expresse ...

: Like in some related moths, the wings of several Tineodidae are decomposed into several rigid spines. This is a small family, with about a global total of 20

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

described to date; some undescribed species are known or suspected to exist however. They seem to be of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n origin, where they are most diverse, but range through the

Wallacea Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lo ...

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

and

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

, and into the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

to the

Marquesas Islands The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in th ...

Description and ecology

These moths are usually small (with wingspans around 1–2 cm/less than 1 inch) and brownish in color. They have large

compound eye A compound eye is a visual organ found in arthropods such as insects and crustaceans. It may consist of thousands of ommatidia, which are tiny independent photoreception units that consist of a cornea, lens, and photoreceptor cells which disti ...

s, thread-like

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

e, and prominent

labial palp The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to: * the lips ** In linguistics, a labial consonant ** In zoolog ...

s. The body is slender, and the legs bear large spines.. The amount of wing modification varies in this family. Some

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 classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

(e.g. '' Cenoloba'', '' Oxychirota'' and '' Tanycnema'') resemble plume moths (

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

Pterophoroidea), hence the common name "false plume moths". Others have little- or almost unmodified wings, and in some cases (e.g. '' Tineodes'') at a casual glance look like

snout moth The Pyralidae, commonly called pyralid moths, snout moths or grass moths, are a family of Lepidoptera in the ditrysian superfamily Pyraloidea. In many (particularly older) classifications, the grass moths (Crambidae) are included in the Pyralida ...

s (family Pyralidae). The forewings may be simply drawn out to a slim point, or deeply divided into two narrow lobes. The hindwings are typically quite short, and may also be divided into two lobes.ABRS (2011) Feeding habits of the

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e are not well known; while they all seem to feed on

eudicot The eudicots, Eudicotidae, or eudicotyledons are a clade of flowering plants mainly characterized by having two seed leaves upon germination. The term derives from Dicotyledons. Traditionally they were called tricolpates or non-magnoliid dicot ...

s, there is no obvious preference for a particular lineage of these. Most Tineodidae larvae seem to be

leaf miner A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths (Lepidoptera), sawflies (Symphyta, the mother clade of wasps), ...

s as in closely related moth families. Those of '' Cenoloba obliteralis'' (and perhaps others) inhabit developing fruit instead, where they eat the young seeds.

Systematics and taxonomy

The relationships of this group are disputed, and they were in fact not even considered a possibly

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 gro ...

lineage for long. Initially, these moths were believed to be unusual

Pyralidae The Pyralidae, commonly called pyralid moths, snout moths or grass moths, are a family of Lepidoptera in the ditrysian superfamily Pyraloidea. In many (particularly older) classifications, the grass moths (Crambidae) are included in the Pyrali ...

(snout moths) or

Pterophoroidea The Pterophoridae or plume moths are a family of Lepidoptera with unusually modified wings. Though they belong to the Apoditrysia like the larger moths and the butterflies, unlike these they are tiny and were formerly included among the assemblag ...

(plume moths). Only in the late 19th century was their distinctness realized, yet they were not considered as a

group. Rather, the more unusual forms were treated as a distinct family Oxychirotidae. This was subsequently merged into the Tineodidae – which was originally established for the more conventional-looking false plume moths – when it became clear that the two groups are very close relatives. Tineodidae are here united with the

many-plumed moth __NOTOC__ The Alucitidae or many-plumed mothsToL (2003) are a family of moths with unusually modified wings. Both fore- and hind-wings consist of about six rigid spines, from which radiate flexible bristles creating a structure similar to a bird ...

s (family Alucitidae) the

Alucitoidea Aluctoidea is the superfamily of many-plumed and false plume moths. These small moths are most easily recognized by their wings. These each consist of many (typically more than 3) narrow strips of membrane around the major veins, instead of a con ...

. It may be that these two groups are actually

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of converg ...

with regard to each other, and merging Tineodidae into Alucitidae and/or redelimiting the groups is warranted. In the

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

scheme used here, the closest living relatives of the Alucitoidea are considered the Pterophoroidea, but this is somewhat disputed. This would mean that the strong similarities between e.g. '' Tanycnema'' and the basal plume moth genus '' Agdistopis'' are not a coincidence. The alternative approach assumes the

fruitworm moth Carposinoidea, the "fruitworm moths", is a superfamily of insects in the lepidopteran order. The superfamily is also known as Copromorphoidea, which is a junior synonym. These moths are small to medium-sized (10–50 mm. in wingspan) and ...

s (Copromorphoidea) are the closest living relatives of the Alucitidae, including the latter in an expanded Copromorphoidea with the fruitworm moths and the

fringe-tufted moth Epermeniidae or the fringe-tufted moths is a family of insects in the lepidopteran order with about 14 genera. Previously they have been divided in two subfamilies Epermeniinae and Ochromolopinae (e.g. Common, 1990: 321) but this is no longer ...

s (family Epermeniidae). In this scheme, the Alucitoidea do not exist, and the Tineodidae are included in the Pterophoroidea. Ultimately however, it is the affiliations of the

Copromorphidae Copromorphidae, the "tropical fruitworm moths", is a family of insects in the lepidopteran order. These moths have broad, rounded forewings, and well-camouflaged scale patterns. Unlike Carposinidae the mouthparts include "labial palps" with ...

(which seem to be basal

Obtectomera The Obtectomera is a clade of macro-moths and butterflies, comprising over 100,000 species in at least 12 superfamilies. Taxonomy The Obtectomera includes the following 12 superfamilies: * Whalleyanoidea Minet, 1991 * Thyridoidea Herrich-Sc ...

, somewhat more advanced than the others) which would decide which scheme to use.

Genera

The genera presently placed here, sorted alphabetically, are:Wikispecies (2010) * '' Anomima'' Turner, 1922 * '' Carcantia'' Walker, 1859 * '' Cenoloba'' Walsingham, 1885 * '' Epharpastis'' Meyrick, 1887 * '' Euthesaura'' Turner, 1922 * '' Euthrausta'' Turner, 1922 * '' Neoxychirota'' Clarke, 1986 * '' Oxychirota'' Meyrick, 1885 * '' Palaeodes'' Hampson, 1913 * '' Tanycnema'' Turner, 1922 * '' Tephroniopsis'' Amsel, 1961 * '' Tineodes'' Guenée in Boisduval & Guenée, 1854

Footnotes

References

:''This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the Bokmål-language Wikipedia.'' * . Version of 2008-MAR-06. * (2011): Australian Faunal Directory &ndash
Tineodidae
Version of 2011-MAY-11. Retrieved 2011-SEP-24. * (1986): Pyralidae and Microlepidoptera of the Marquesas Archipelago. ''Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology'' 416: 1–485
PDF fulltext
(214 MB!) * (2010)

Version of 2010-MAY-11. Retrieved 2011-SEP-24. * (1991): Tentative reconstruction of the ditrysian phylogeny (Lepidoptera: Glossata). ''Entomologica Scandinavica'' 22(1): 69–95. (HTML abstract) * (2003)
Alucitoidea
Version of 2003-JAN-01. Retrieved 2011-SEP-24. {{Taxonbar, from=Q902467