Acanthoctesia or "archaic sun moths" is an infraorder of insects in the lepidopteran order, containing a single superfamily, Acanthopteroctetoidea, and a single family, Acanthopteroctetidae. They are currently considered the fifth group up on the comb of branching events in the extant lepidopteran phylogeny (Kristensen and Skalski, 1999: 10). They also represent the most basal lineage in the lepidopteran group Coelolepida (Wiegmann et al., 2002) (along with Lophocoronoidea and the massive group "Myoglossata") characterised in part by its scale morphology (Kristensen, 1999: 53-54). Moths in this superfamily are usually small (but one is 15 mm. in wingspan) and iridescent. Like other "homoneurous" Coelolepida and non-ditrysian Heteroneura, the ocelli are lost. There are variety of unique structural characteristics (see Kristensen, 1999: 53-54 for an overview). There are two described genera of these primitive moths. Catapterix was originally described within its own family (Sinev, 1988) but Acanthopteroctetes shares with it a number of specialised structural features including similar wing morphology (in A. unifascia) (Nielsen and Kristensen, 1996: 1255).
Distribution
Four species of Acanthoctesia in the genus Acanthopteroctetes are very localised in Western North America (Davis, 1978). Another genus, Catapterix represented by a single species comes from single sites at "Mount Karadag" and "Krasnolesie"[1] in the Crimean Peninsula of the Ukraine (Zagulajev and Sinev, 1988). A third taxon, undescribed, is known from the Andes in Peru (Kristensen, 1999: 54).
Biology
Acanthopteroctetes are leaf-miners on the shrub genus Ceanothus (Rhamnaceae) (Kristensen, 1999: 53-54). The mine is a blotch on the leaf, overwintering as a larva, with the pupa in a cocoon on the ground (Kristensen, 1999). The adult moths, diurnal, emerge in the spring. The biology of Catapterix is however unknown.
Conservation
These primitive moths must be considered high onservation priorities on the grounds that the genera are both evolutionarily highly distinctive and have very narrow ranges (Nielsen and Kristensen, 1996). Catapterix crimaea, apparently unreported more or less since its description (Zagulajev and Sinev, 1988; Zagulajev, 1992) on this basis must be one of the top priorities in Europe for conservation surveys or monitoring.