Prototheora

Prototheora
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Superfamily:	Hepialoidea
Family:	Prototheoridae; Meyrick, 1917
Genus:	Prototheora; Meyrick, 1917
Diversity
	12–13 species
Synonyms
	Metatheora Meyrick, 1919;

Prototheora is a genus of moths. It is the only genus of the Prototheoridae, or the African primitive ghost moths, a family of insects in the lepidopteran order, contained in the superfamily Hepialoidea. These moths are endemic to Southern Africa.

Diversity and distribution

Members of the genus Prototheora are found in South Africa (Kristensen, 1999: 60; Nielsen et al., 2000), Angola (Prototheora angolae) and the Mulanje Massif of Malawi (Davis, 2001). See also revisions by Janse (1942) and Davis (1996).

List of species

Prototheora parachlora (Meyrick, 1919) (originally in Metatheora)
- =Prototheora paraglossa; Janse, 1942
Prototheora petrosema Meyrick, 1917
Prototheora monoglossa Meyrick, 1924
Prototheora corvifera (Meyrick, 1920) (originally in Metatheora)
Prototheora merga Davis, 1996
Prototheora quadricornis Meyrick, 1920
Prototheora biserrata Davis, 1996
Prototheora serruligera Meyrick, 1920
Prototheora cooperi Janse, 1942
Prototheora geniculata Davis, 1996
Prototheora drackensbergae Davis, 1996
Prototheora angolae Davis, 1996
Prototheora malawiensis Davis, 2001

References

^ Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness - Lepidoptera

Davis, D.R. (1996). A revision of the southern African family Prototheoridae (Lepidoptera: Hepialoidea). Entomologica Scandinavica, 27: 393-439.
Davis, D.R. (2001). A new species of Prototheora from Malawi, with additional notes on the distribution and morphology of the genus (Lepidoptera: Prototheoridae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington: 103(2): 452-456.Abstract
Janse, A.J.T. (1942). The moths of South Africa. Volume IV, part 1. Jugatae 78 pp.
Kristensen, N.P. (1999) [1998]. The non-Glossatan Moths. Ch. 4, pp. 41–62 in Kristensen, N.P. (Ed.). Lepidoptera, Moths and Butterflies. Volume 1: Evolution, Systematics, and Biogeography. 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.
Nielsen, E.S., Robinson, G.S. and Wagner, D.L. 2000. Ghost-moths of the world: a global inventory and bibliography of the Exoporia (Mnesarchaeoidea and Hepialoidea) (Lepidoptera) Journal of Natural History, 34(6): 823-878.Abstract

Sources

Common Name Index

External links

[1] Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness - Lepidoptera

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