''Whalleyana'' is an enigmatic

genus 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 nom ...

of moths in the lepidopteran group

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 ...

, endemic to

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. The genus contains two

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 ...

, whose biology are unknown. The genus had been placed in the picture-winged leaf moths, ( Thyrididae), but then was placed in its own family ( Minet, 1991), and later elevated to its own superfamily (Dugdale et al., 1999: 229-230); see also Fänger (2004). The genus was named after

Paul E. S. Whalley Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, a British entomologist. Genomic studies have found them to be most closely related to

Callidulidae Callidulidae, the only known family of the superfamily Calliduloidea, is the family of Old World butterfly-moths, containing eight genera. They have a peculiar distribution, restricted to the Old World tropics of Southeast Asia to Australasia a ...

, and it is suggested that they should be placed in Calliduloidea.

References

*Dugdale, J.S., Kristensen, N.P., Robinson, G.S. and Scoble, M.J. (1999). The non-Glossatan Moths. Ch. 13, pp. 217–233 in Kristensen, N.P. (Ed.). ''Lepidoptera, Moths and Butterflies''. Volume 1: Evolution, Systematics, and Biogeography. Handbuch der Zoologie. Eine Naturgeschichte der Stämme des Tierreiches / Handbook of Zoology. A Natural History of the phyla of the Animal Kingdom. Band / Volume IV Arthropoda: Insecta Teilband / Part 35: 491 pp. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York. *Fänger, H.. 2004. Comparative morphology of tergal phragmata occurring in the dorsal thoraco-abdominal junction of ditrysian Lepidoptera (Insecta). ''Zoomorphology'', 119 (3): 163-18
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* Minet, J. (1991). Tentative reconstruction of the ditrysian phylogeny (Lepidoptera: Glossata). ''Entomologica Scandinavica'', 22: 69-95.

Sources

*''Firefly Encyclopedia of Insects and Spiders'', edited by Christopher O'Toole, , 2002

External links

Tree of LifeWikispecies
Obtectomera Ditrysia genera Taxa named by Pierre Viette {{moth-stub