Urodidae

Urodidae or "false burnet moths" is a family of insects in the lepidopteran order, representing its own superfamily, Urodoidea, with three genera, one of which, Wockia, occurs in Europe.

Taxonomy and systematics

Urodidae were previously included in the superfamily Yponomeutoidea (Kyrki, 1984, 1988) and have also been lumped with Galacticidae (Heppner, 1991, 1997) or with other Sesioidea (Heppner, 1998). They belong to the lower part of the lepidopteran clade "Apoditrysia" (Dugdale et al., 1999) (i.e. not "Obtectomera"), but their closest relatives are as yet unknown and it is hoped that DNA sequencing can help resolve this question.

Morphology and identification

Urodidae resemble some Zygaenidae: Procridinae at rest , These small to medium-sized moths measure 11 to 37 mm in wingspan and often have a greyish or mottled forewing background colour. The male adult has a "hairpencil" on the costa of the hindwing. In the caterpillar, the placement of the setae and structure of the prolegs is diagnostic, and the pupal segments I-II are fixed. On the head, there are no ocelli or "chaetosemata" and the proboscis even at the base is unscaled. An "epiphysis" is present on the foreleg (Dugdale et al. (1999), and for more details).