Exoporia

Exoporia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Clade: Neolepidoptera
Infraorder: Exoporia
Superfamilies
Diversity
68 genera and at least 625 species

The Exoporia are a group of primitive Lepidoptera comprising the superfamilies Mnesarchaeoidea and Hepialoidea.[1][2] They are a natural group or clade. Exoporia is the sister group of the lepidopteran infraorder Heteroneura. They are characterised by their unique female reproductive system which has an external groove between the ostium bursae and the ovipore by which the sperm is transferred to the egg rather than having the mating and egg-laying parts of the abdomen with a common opening (cloaca) as in other nonditrysian moths, or with separate openings linked internally by a "ductus seminalis" as in the Ditrysia. See Kristensen (1999: 57) for other exoporian characteristics.

  1. ^ 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
  2. ^ 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.