Galacticidae

Life-forms

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Cladus: Unikonta
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Cladus: Holozoa
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Cladus: Protostomia
Cladus: Ecdysozoa
Cladus: Panarthropoda
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Classis: Insecta
Cladus: Dicondylia
Subclassis: Pterygota
Cladus: Metapterygota
Infraclassis: Neoptera
Cladus: Eumetabola
Cladus: Endopterygota
Superordo: Panorpida
Cladus: Amphiesmenoptera
Ordo: Lepidoptera
Subordo: Glossata
Cladus: Coelolepida
Cladus: Myoglossata
Cladus: Neolepidoptera
Infraordo: Heteroneura
Cladus: Eulepidoptera
Cladus: Ditrysia
Cladus: Apoditrysia
Superfamilia: Galacticoidea

Familia: Galacticidae
Genera: Galactica - Homadaula... 3 genera, 19 species
Name

Galacticidae Minet, 1986.
References

van Nieukerken, E.J., Kaila, L., Kitching, I.J., Kristensen, N.P., Lees, D.C., Minet, J., Mitter, C., Mutanen, M., Regier, J.C., Simonsen, T.J., Wahlberg, N., Yen, S-H., Zahiri, R., Adamski, D., Baixeras, J., Bartsch, D., Bengtsson, B.A., Brown, J.W., Bucheli, S.R., Davis, D.R., de Prins, J., de Prins, W., Epstein, M.C., Gentili-Poole, P., Gielis, C., Hättenschwiler, P., Hausmann, A., Holloway, J.D., Kallies, A., Karsholt, O., Kawahara, A.Y., Koster, S., Kozlov, M.V., Lafontaine, J.D., Lamas, G., Landry, J-F., Lee, S., Nuss, M., Park, K-T., Penz, C.M., Rota, J., Schintlmeister, A., Schmidt, B.C., Sohn, J-C., Solis, M.A., Tarmann, G.M., Warren, A.D., Weller, S., Yaklovlev, R.V., Zolotuhin, V.V. & Zwick, A. 2011. Order Lepidoptera Linnaeus, 1758. Pp 212–221 In:
Zhang, Z.-Q. (ed.) 2011. Animal biodiversity: an outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness. Zootaxa 3148: 1–237. Open access. Reference page PDF. Reference page.
Pitkin, B. & P. Jenkins. Butterflies and Moths of the World: Generic Names and their Type-species. Natural History Museum.[1]

Vernacular names
中文: 短翅谷蛾科

Galacticidae is a recently recognised and enigmatic family of insects in the lepidopteran order. These moderate sized moths are 8–17 mm in wingspan and have previously been embedded within several lepidopteran superfamilies (Tineoidea: Psychidae, Urodoidea, Sesioidea and in several families of Yponomeutoidea), but Galacticidae is currently placed in its own superfamily at the base of the natural group Apoditrysia (Dugdale et al., 1999 [1998]; May, 2004).

Note: the superfamily was unintentionally called "Galaticoidea" in Dugdale et al. (1999) [1998].

The relationships of Galacticidae need reassessment with new characters including DNA data [1]. The genus Homadaula looks remarkably like the yponomeutid genera Prays and Atemelia and some species are reminiscent of "small ermine" moths. Despite the spined abdominal segments of the pupae and a few other characters (Minet, 1986) some possess structural similarities to yponomeutids as well and have similar larval behaviour [2] so their removal from the Yponomeutoidea has been questioned (Mey, 2004).

The family is distributed in the Old World from Africa and Madagascar to Asia, Australia and New Caledonia. The richest genus is Homadaula with eight species. The mimosa webworm (Homadaula anisocentra) is a pest of ornamental plants [3], which has been introduced to eastern North America (Moriuti, 1963; Dugdale et al., 1999).

References

Dugdale, J.S., Kristensen, N.P., Robinson, G.S. and Scoble, M.J. (1999) [1998]. The smaller microlepidoptera grade superfamilies, Ch.13., pp. 217–232 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.
Mey, W. (2004). Galacticidae (Ditrysia incertae sedis). Esperiana 1: 91-102.
Minet, J. (1986). Ébauche d'une classification moderne de l'ordre des Lépidoptères. Alexanor 14(7): 291-313.
Moriuti, S. (1963). Remarks on the Paraprays anisocentra (Meyrick, 1922) (Plutellidae), with descriptions of its larva and pupa. Transactions of the Lepidopterological Society of Japan, 14(3): 52-59.