Copromorphidae
Encyclopedia
Copromorphidae, the "tropical fruitworm moths" is a family
of insects in the lepidoptera
n order
. These moths
have broad, rounded forewings, and well-camouflage
d scale patterns. Unlike Carposinidae
the mouthparts
include "labial palps" with the second rather than third segment the longest. The position of the enigmatic New Zealand
genus Isonomeutis in this family in uncertain, as it lacks the flimsy cuticle
of the pupa
characteristic of other Copromorphoidea
. With other unusual structural characteristics of the caterpillar
and adult, it could represent the sister lineage of all other extant members of this superfamily (Dugdale et al., 1999). The genus Sisyroxena from Madagascar
is also notable for its unusual venation and wing scale
sockets (Dugdale et al., 1999).
words () meaning "excrement" and () meaning "shape" or "appearance", a reference to the visual characteristics of the moths' camouflage.
region, occurring in Madagascar
, India
, South East Asia, New Guinea
, Australia
, New Zealand
, the Neotropics, with limited Temperate
region coverage except that the genera Lotisma and Ellabella occur in North America
and the latter also in China
(Common, 1990). Over 20 belong to the genus
Copromorpha occurring in Indo-Australia (Dugdale et al., 1999).
e pupa
te with the silken gallery or descend to the ground and make a cocoon covered in detritus (Dugdale et al., 1999).
, Moraceae
(Ficus
) and Berberidaceae
http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/projects/hostplants/list.dsml?searchPageURL=index.dsml&Familyqtype=starts+with&Family=Copromorphidae&PFamilyqtype=starts+with&PFamily=&Genusqtype=starts+with&Genus=&PGenusqtype=starts+with&PGenus=&Speciesqtype=starts+with&Species=&PSpeciesqtype=starts+with&PSpecies=&Country=&sort=Family. The anomalous genus Isonomeutis is a predator on "scale insects" (Coccoidea; Margarodidae
) (Dugdale et al., 1999) on the Podocarpaceae
species Dacrydium
cupressinumhttp://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/projects/hostplants/list.dsml?searchPageURL=index.dsml&Familyqtype=starts+with&Family=Copromorphidae&PFamilyqtype=starts+with&PFamily=&Genusqtype=starts+with&Genus=&PGenusqtype=starts+with&PGenus=&Speciesqtype=starts+with&Species=&PSpeciesqtype=starts+with&PSpecies=&Country=&sort=Family.
Marls" of Isle of Wight
, a rock formation of Oligocene
age, about 35 million years old (Jarzembowski, 1980).
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
of insects in the lepidoptera
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
n order
Order (biology)
In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
. These moths
Moths
Moths may refer to:* Gustav Moths , German rower* The Moths!, an English indie rock band* MOTHS, members of the Memorable Order of Tin Hats...
have broad, rounded forewings, and well-camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
d scale patterns. Unlike Carposinidae
Carposinidae
Carposinidae, the "fruitworm moths" is a family of insects in the lepidopteran order. These moths are narrower winged than Copromorphidae, with less rounded forewing tips. Males often have conspicuous patches of scales on either surface...
the mouthparts
Insect mouthparts
Insects exhibit a range of mouthparts, adapted to particular modes of feeding. The earliest insects had chewing mouthparts...
include "labial palps" with the second rather than third segment the longest. The position of the enigmatic New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
genus Isonomeutis in this family in uncertain, as it lacks the flimsy cuticle
Cuticle
A cuticle , or cuticula, is a term used for any of a variety of tough but flexible, non-mineral outer coverings of an organism, or parts of an organism, that provide protection. Various types of "cuticles" are non-homologous; differing in their origin, structure, function, and chemical composition...
of the pupa
Pupa
A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is found only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages; embryo, larva, pupa and imago...
characteristic of other Copromorphoidea
Copromorphoidea
Copromorphoidea, the "fruitworm moths" is a superfamily of insects in the lepidopteran order. These moths are small to medium-sized and are broad-winged bearing some resemblance to the superfamilies Tortricoidea and Immoidea...
. With other unusual structural characteristics of the caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...
and adult, it could represent the sister lineage of all other extant members of this superfamily (Dugdale et al., 1999). The genus Sisyroxena from Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
is also notable for its unusual venation and wing scale
Scale (zoology)
In most biological nomenclature, a scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of an animal's skin to provide protection. In lepidopteran species, scales are plates on the surface of the insect wing, and provide coloration...
sockets (Dugdale et al., 1999).
Etymology
The word Copromorphidae derives from the Ancient GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
words () meaning "excrement" and () meaning "shape" or "appearance", a reference to the visual characteristics of the moths' camouflage.
Distribution
These moths are widely distributed except the PalearcticPalearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth's surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone...
region, occurring in Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, South East Asia, New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, the Neotropics, with limited Temperate
Temperate
In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...
region coverage except that the genera Lotisma and Ellabella occur in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and the latter also in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(Common, 1990). Over 20 belong to the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Copromorpha occurring in Indo-Australia (Dugdale et al., 1999).
Behaviour
Adults are night-flying and attracted to lights. Caterpillars live between joined leaves, flowers or fruits or bore within stems, and some eat leaves. The larvaLarva
A larva 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...
e pupa
Pupa
A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is found only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages; embryo, larva, pupa and imago...
te with the silken gallery or descend to the ground and make a cocoon covered in detritus (Dugdale et al., 1999).
Larval hostplants
Caterpillars feed on the families EricaceaeEricaceae
The Ericaceae, commonly known as the heath or heather family, is a group of mostly calcifuge flowering plants. The family is large, with roughly 4000 species spread across 126 genera, making it the 14th most speciose family of flowering plants...
, Moraceae
Moraceae
Moraceae — often called the mulberry family or fig family — are a family of flowering plants comprising about 40 genera and over 1000 species. Most are widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, less so in temperate climates...
(Ficus
Ficus
Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The Common Fig Ficus is a genus of...
) and Berberidaceae
Berberidaceae
Berberidaceae are a family of 15 genera flowering plants commonly called the barberry family. This family is in the order Ranunculales. The family contains about 570 species, of which the majority are in Berberis...
http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/projects/hostplants/list.dsml?searchPageURL=index.dsml&Familyqtype=starts+with&Family=Copromorphidae&PFamilyqtype=starts+with&PFamily=&Genusqtype=starts+with&Genus=&PGenusqtype=starts+with&PGenus=&Speciesqtype=starts+with&Species=&PSpeciesqtype=starts+with&PSpecies=&Country=&sort=Family. The anomalous genus Isonomeutis is a predator on "scale insects" (Coccoidea; Margarodidae
Margarodidae
Margarodidae is a family of scale insects within superfamily Coccoidea. Members of the family include giant coccids , Polish cochineal and ground pearls ....
) (Dugdale et al., 1999) on the Podocarpaceae
Podocarpaceae
Podocarpaceae is a large family of mainly Southern Hemisphere conifers, comprising about 156 species of evergreen trees and shrubs. It contains 19 genera if Phyllocladus is included and if Manoao and Sundacarpus are recognized....
species Dacrydium
Dacrydium
Dacrydium is a genus of conifers belonging to the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. Sixteen species of evergreen dioecious trees and shrubs are presently recognized. The genus was first described by Solander in 1786, and formerly included many more species, which were divided into sections A, B, and C...
cupressinumhttp://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/projects/hostplants/list.dsml?searchPageURL=index.dsml&Familyqtype=starts+with&Family=Copromorphidae&PFamilyqtype=starts+with&PFamily=&Genusqtype=starts+with&Genus=&PGenusqtype=starts+with&PGenus=&Speciesqtype=starts+with&Species=&PSpeciesqtype=starts+with&PSpecies=&Country=&sort=Family.
Fossils
One fossil taxon is known, Copromorpha fossilis Jarzembowski, 1980 from the "BembridgeBembridge
Bembridge is an affluent village and civil parish located on the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. It had a population of 3,848 according to the 2001 census of the United Kingdom, leading to claims by residents that Bembridge is the largest village in England, and occasional claims that it is...
Marls" of Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, a rock formation of Oligocene
Oligocene
The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...
age, about 35 million years old (Jarzembowski, 1980).
External links
Provisional list of species (based on NHM Lepindex)
- Aegidomorpha psammodina Meyrick, 1932
- Cathelotis sanidopa Meyrick, 1926
- Copromorpha aeruginea Meyrick, 1917
- Copromorpha bryanthes Meyrick, 1926
- Copromorpha cryptochlora Meyrick, 1930
- Copromorpha alixella Legrand, 1965
- Copromorpha dialithoma Diakonoff, 1967
- Copromorpha efflorescens Meyrick, 1906
- Copromorpha fossilis Jarzembowski, 1980
- Copromorpha gypsota Meyrick, 1886
- Copromorpha hyphantria Diakonoff, 1984
- Copromorpha kijimuna Nasu, Saito & Komai, 2004http://www.jpmoth.org/Copromorphidae/F0000Thumb.html
- Copromorpha lichenitis Turner, 1916 (originally in Trychnostola)http://www.ento.csiro.au/gallery/moths/Copromorphalichenitis
- Copromorpha lignisquama Diakonoff, 1954
- Copromorpha macrolepis Diakonoff, 1959
- Copromorpha mesobactris Meyrick, 1930
- Copromorpha metallistis Meyrick, 19s06
- Copromorpha mistharnis Diakonoff, [1968]
- Copromorpha myrmecias Meyrick, 1930
- Copromorpha narcodes Meyrick, 1916
- Copromorpha nesographa Meyrick, 1926
- Copromorpha orthidias Meyrick, 1927
- Copromorpha phaeosticta Turner, 1916 (originally in Trychnostola)
- Copromorpha phytochroa Diakonoff, 1953
- Copromorpha pleurophanes Meyrick, 1905
- Copromorpha pyrrhoscia Meyrick, 1935
- Copromorpha roepkei Diakonoff, 1953
- Copromorpha smaragdarcha Diakonoff, 1967
- Copromorpha tetrarcha Meyrick, 1916
- Copromorpha thrombota Meyrick, 1916
- Dryanassa erebactis Meyrick, 1936
- Ellabella editha Busck, 1925
- Ellabella melanoclista Meyrick, 1927 (originally in Probolacma)
- Endothamna marmarocyma Meyrick, 1922 (originally in Endothamna)
- Isonomeutis restinctaIsonomeutis restinctaThe Marbled Snouter is a moth of the Copromorphidae family. It is endemic to New Zealand, where it known from the Northland and Auckland districts and in Pureora Forest....
Meyrick, 1923 http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biosystematics/invertebrates/lepidoptera/ - Isonomeutis amauropaIsonomeutis amauropaIsonomeutis amauropa is a moth of the Copromorphidae family. It is endemic to New Zealand, where it is widespread and moderately common.The larvae are predatory, feeding on margarodid scale insects under the bark of trees such as Dacrydium cupressinum and beech. They are light yellowish-pink with a...
Meyrick, 1888 http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biosystematics/invertebrates/lepidoptera/ - Lotisma trigonana Walsingham, 1879 (originally in Sciaphila)
- Lotisma vulcanica Meyrick, 1932
- Neophylarcha helicosema Meyrick, 1926
- Ordrupia dasyleuca Meyrick, 1926
- Ordrupia fabricata Meyrick, 1915
- Ordrupia fanniella Busck, 1912
- Ordrupia friserella Busck, 1911
- Ordrupia macroctenis Meyrick, 1926
- Osidryas chersodes Turner, 1913 (originally in Heterocrita)
- Osidryas chlorotribes Meyrick, 1939
- Osidryas phyllodes Meyrick, 1916
- Phanerochersa amphignosta Meyrick, 1926
- Phaulophara belogramma Turner, 1916
- Phaulophara crossospila Turner, 1923 (originally in Ardiosteres)
- Phycomorpha bryophylla Meyrick, 1927
- Phycomorpha escharitis Meyrick, 1916
- Phycomorpha metachrysaPhycomorpha metachrysaPhycomorpha metachrysa is a moth of the Copromorphidae family. It is endemic to New Zealand.The wingspan is 19–20 mm. Adults are dark green with raised scale-tufts on the forewings.The larvae feed on Streblus species....
Meyrick, 1914http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biosystematics/invertebrates/lepidoptera/ - Phycomorpha phlyctaenopa Meyrick, 1926 (originally in Rhopalosetia)
- Phycomorpha prasinochroa (Meyrick, 1906) (originally in Copromorpha) http://www.ento.csiro.au/gallery/moths/Phycomorphaprasinochroa
- Phycomorpha simplex Strand, 1915 (originally in Rhynchoferella)
- Phycomorpha ilyopis Meyrick, 1930 (originally in Saridacma)
- Phycomorpha syncentra Meyrick, 1916 (originally in Sisyroxena)
- Phycomorpha chalazombra Meyrick, 1938 (originally in Spilogenes)
- Phycomorpha argophthalma Meyrick, 1932 (originally in Syncamaris)
- Tanymecica xanthoplaca Turner, 1916http://www.ento.csiro.au/gallery/moths/Tanymecicaxanthoplaca/tanymecica_xanthoplaca_01