Macroheterocera Explained

The Macroheterocera are a well supported clade of moths that are closely related to butterflies and macro-moths.^{[1] [2]}

Taxonomy

The Macroheterocera includes the following superfamilies:^{[1] [2]}

• Mimallonoidea – sack bearers (variously included in basal position^[2] or excluded^[1])
• Drepanoidea – drepanids
• Noctuoidea – owlet moths
• Geometroidea – inchworms
• Lasiocampoidea – lappet moths
• Bombycoidea – bombycoid moths

The macroheteroceran superfamilies were previously place in the Macrolepidoptera, but recent molecular studies have failed to recover the Macrolepidoptera as a monophyletic group.^{[1] [2]} The latter grouping also included true butterflies (Papilionoidea), New World butterfly-moths (Hedylidae), and Old World butterfly-moths (Calliduloidea).

Notes and References

1. van Nieukerken. Erik J. . Lauri Kaila . Ian J. Kitching . Niels P. Kristensen . David C. Lees . Joël Minet . Charles Mitter . Marko Mutanen . Jerome C. Regier . Thomas J. Simonsen . Niklas Wahlberg . Shen-Horn Yen . Reza Zahiri . David Adamski . Joaquin Baixeras . Daniel Bartsch . Bengt Å. Bengtsson . John W. Brown . Sibyl Rae Bucheli . Donald R. Davis . Jurate De Prins . Willy De Prins . Marc E. Epstein . Patricia Gentili-Poole . . Peter Hättenschwiler . Axel Hausmann . Jeremy D. Holloway . Axel Kallies . Ole Karsholt. Akito Y. Kawahara . Akito Y. Kawahara . Sjaak (J.C.) Koster . Mikhail V. Kozlov . J. Donald Lafontaine . Gerardo Lamas . Jean-François Landry . Sangmi Lee . Matthias Nuss . Kyu-Tek Park . Carla Penz . Jadranka Rota . Alexander Schintlmeister . B. Christian Schmidt . Jae-Cheon Sohn . . Gerhard M. Tarmann . Andrew D. Warren . Susan Weller . Roman V. Yakovlev . Vadim V. Zolotuhin . Andreas Zwick . Order Lepidoptera Linnaeus, 1758. Zootaxa. 23 December 2011. 3148. Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness. 212–221. Zhi-Qiang. Zhang. Zootaxa.
2. Mitter. Charles. Davis. Donald R.. Cummings. Michael P.. Phylogeny and Evolution of Lepidoptera. Annual Review of Entomology. 62. 1. 2017. 265–283. 0066-4170. 10.1146/annurev-ento-031616-035125. free.