Archiearinae
Large Virgin Child ( Archiearis parthenias )
The Virgin Child ( Archiearinae ) are a small subfamily of the tensioner ( Geometridae ), which are counted among the moths. However, the moth of the few representatives of the Archiearinae are all diurnal and already appear early in the year.
Features
The medium-sized moths are predominantly brown, brown-black with yellowish to orange - black hind wings. Head, chest, abdomen and legs are very hairy. The eyes are small. The trunk is short and spirally. The caterpillars have eight pairs of legs, although the abdominal pairs of legs are rudimentary. The pupae overwinter and hatch in the spring. However, you can also be a winter and hatch until the following spring over.
Many features are believed plesiomorphic, such as the number of legs and the abdominal Flügeladerung. Therefore, we consider the Archiearinae as the most primitive group of the clamps.
Way of life
The first maiden children can be found in Central Europe in favorable years at the end of February. However, the main flight period of the butterfly is March and April. The caterpillars of the Virgin children live in Central Europe on various deciduous trees (poplar, birch, willow, beech ).
System
The maiden children were considered originally as an independent family ( Brephidae ) and placed in the vicinity of cutworms ( Noctuidae ). Later, they were attributed as a subfamily ( Brephinae ) the calipers by Prout (1912). The genus name Brephos is invalid, therefore proposed Fletcher ( 1953), the new name Archiearinae ago, has become common.
The subfamily Archiearinae is represented by six genera and 13 species worldwide. In Europe, so far five species were found, other representatives live in the southern Andes, two other genera are native to the Holarctic.
- Genus Archiearides Fletcher, 1953 Archiearides fidonioides ( Butler, 1882)
- Archiearides pusilla ( Butler, 1882)
- Archiearis infans ( Möschler, 1862)
- Large Virgin Child ( Archiearis parthenias (Linnaeus, 1761 ) )
- Boudinotiana hodeberti Leraut, 2002
- Medium Virgin Child ( Boudinotiana notha ( Hübner, 1803) )
- Little Virgin Child ( Boudinotiana puella ( Esper, 1787) )
- Boudinotiana touranginii ( Berce, 1870)
- Caenosynteles haploaria Dyar, 1912
- Lachnocephala vellosata Fletcher, 1953
- Leucobrephos middendorfii ( Ménétries, 1858) ( with the subspecies L. m. Nivea Kozhantshikov, 1924 and L. m. Ussuriensis Moltrechth, 1914)
- Leucobrephos brephoides (Walker, 1857)
- Leucobrephos mongolicum Vojnits, 1977
Native to Tasmania genera Acalyptes Turner, 1926, Dirce Prout, 1910, which were previously provided to the Archiearinae, by McQuillan (2003) were transferred to the Ennominae.