Oecophora

Oecophora
Adult Oecophora bractella at Hellerup (Denmark)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Oecophoridae
Subfamily: Oecophorinae
Genus: Oecophora
Latreille, 1796
Type species
Tinea sulphurella
Fabricius, 1777
(non Fabricius, 1775: preoccupied)

Oecophora is a genus of the concealer moth family (Oecophoridae). Among these, it belongs to subfamily Oecophorinae. It is the type genus of its subfamily and family. Thus, regardless of the uncertain phylogeny, systematics and taxonomy of its superfamily Gelechioidea, it and its closest relatives always have to be assigned to this family and subfamily as long as these are deemed valid.[1]

Systematics and taxonomy

The genus' type species was initially given as the Tinea sulphurella described by J.C. Fabricius in 1777. However, that name is a junior homonym and thus invalid; Fabricius himself had used it merely two years earlier to describe the moth now known as Esperia sulphurella. But actually, Fabricius' 1777 "T." sulphurella had been described by C. Linnaeus in 1758 already, who named it Tinea bractella. But subsequent authors placed it in the related genus Alabonia, thus preventing for long the determination of the correct name for the moth invalidly described by Fabricius in 1777.[2]

Invalid scientific names of Oecophora are:[3]

Selected species

Species of Oecophora include:[1]

Formerly, several other Oecophorinae (e.g. of genus Esperia) have been placed here too.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 See references in Savela (2001)
  2. ↑ Grabe (1942), Pitkin & Jenkins (2004)
  3. ↑ Pitkin & Jenkins (2004)

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oecophora.