Prototheora

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.

Prototheora
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
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

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

• 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

• LepTree.net
• Tree of Life
• Wikispecies
• Mouthparts