Family PSYCHIDAE

psychidae

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Family PSYCHIDAE

Compiler and date details

February 2012 - Data added by Robyn Meier with advice from Ted Edwards, Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences

1996 - Names and Introduction taken from Nielsen et al. (1996)

Introduction

[After Nielsen & Edwards 1996: 33-35]
The case moth (or bag moth or bagworm) family have larvae that construct larval cases. Psychids are represented in most parts of the world, include some 600 named species and are richly represented in Australia. While the monophyly of the family is reasonably well demonstrated there are no explicit studies on the phylogeny of the components of the family. The familes Pseudarbelidae and Arrhenophanidae, which are not represented in Australia, are sometimes included i n the Psychidae (Robinson 1988). The family has been divided into the 'tineiform', small psychids in a subfamily variously termed Psycheodinae, Micropsychinae and Taleporiinae and the 'bombyciform', large and robust Psychinae (or Macropsychinae) (Kozhansichikov 1956) or the family has been divided into a number of subfamilies, some of which are ill-defined and for which there is no satisfactory phylogeny. Recently, the Palaearctic fauna has been divided into the Naryciinae, Taleporiinae, Placodominae, Typhoninae, Psychinae, Epichnopteryginae and Oiketicinae (Sauter & Hättenschwiler 1991). The Australian fauna has not been subject to modern study and no attempt is here made to place the named fauna in a formal subfamily classification.

The Australian fauna was reviewed for Lepidopterorum Catalogus by Dalle Torre & Strand (1929) and Seitz's Macrolepidoptera of the World by Gaede (1932). The Australian fauna was first revised by Meyrick & Lower (1907) followed by Turner (1947). Of these references only Dalla Torre & Strand (1929) deal with all Psychidae while the other, in spite of their titles, are concerned with the 'bombyciform' fauna only. The genera Ardiosteres Meyrick and Iphierga Meyrick, which have casebearing larvae which feed in nests of ants, were formally transferred from the Tineidae to the Psychidae by Robinson & Nielsen (1993). Hättenschwiler (1989) named a new subfamily for the endemic New Zealand genus Scoriodyta Meyrick.

Excluded Taxa

Misidentifications: PSYCHIDAE: Metura oceanica Viette, 1963 [possible misidentification of M. phyllosacca Beaver, 2020 specimens, endemic to New Caledonia and surrounding islands] — Beaver, E.P. 2020. Revision of the genus Metura (Lepidoptera: Psychidae) with description of two new species. Zootaxa 4861(2): 188-210 [208]