Superfamilia Zygaenoidea (Familias Megalopygidae y Zygaenidae): Biología y distribución.

Abstract

The Zygaenoidea Superfamily comprises the moths of 12 Families with a total of 3,269 species. The Superfamily is usually organized into four sections: Family Zygaenidae, Group Limacodidae (Families Megalopygidae, Limacodidae, Aididae, and Dalceridae), Group Amomoetido (Families Anomoeotidae, Himantopteridae, Somabrachyidae), and the Complex of Families Lacturidae-Phaudidae, with small remaining families of biology unusual larvae difficult to locate (Heterogynidae, Epipyropidae and Cyclotornidae). The Megalopygidae family (Mega: large and pyge: back of the body) comprises nocturnal moths with an estimated 232 species, organized into 23 genera. The Zygaenidae family includes the diurnal moths known as pimpernels, with an estimated diversity of 1,200 species distributed worldwide, although mostly in the Palaearctic region. The compilation of information allowed us to observe that the knowledge of the morphological characteristics that distinguish the families of the Zygaenoidea Superfamily from others is sufficient, that the Megalopygidae family is a family widely known for the medical importance of its larval stages, as well as for the morphology of all its stages, but on the contrary, the relationship they present with their food plants and their distribution is little known. In the Zygaenidae family, its cyanogenic capacity and the metallic colors of its adults stand out, in addition to the well-established information that is found about the morphological characteristics that distinguish most of its subfamilies from one another, however, this variety of forms in all the stages of the subfamilies causes that some characteristics that describe them as a family are not well established; Regarding its distribution, it is observed that it is generally well known for the continents of Europe, Asia and Oceania, and for the Procridinae subfamily, leaving aside the rest of the continents and subfamilies.