Yponomeuta, Latreille, 1796

Agassiz, David J. L., 2019, The Yponomeutidae of the Afrotropical region (Lepidoptera: Yponomeutoidea), Zootaxa 4600 (1), pp. 1-69 : 6-7

YPONOMEUTA Latreille, 1796

Yponomeuta Latreille, 1796: 146

Hyphantes Hübner, 1806: 2

Hyponomeuta Billberg, 1820: 91

Nygmia Hübner, 1825: 412

Ypomeneuta ; misspelling ( Eversmann 1844).

Hyponemeuta Zeller, 1846: 165

Hyponomenta , misspelling ( Turner 1898: 201)

Teinoptila Sauber, 1902: 701 .

Choutinea Huang, 1982: 269 .

Ptiloteina Gershenson & Ulenberg, 1998: 90 . syn. nov.

Type species: Phalaena evonymella Linnaeus, 1758 .

This well known genus is characterised by its elongate wingshape with white or grey ground colour with rows of black dots. The hindwing of all species have a subbasal hyaline patch. The larvae are usually gregarious, feeding in a web.

The genera Teinoptila and Ptiloteina were described from Asian species within the Palaearctic Region on account of their differences from other Palaearctic species. The diversity of structure of species in the Afrotropical Region is so great that the genus Yponomeuta is retained for all the species placed in these genera, and therefore Teinoptila and Ptiloteina become synonyms. Teinoptila has had a varied history. It was described by Sauber in 1902, placed as a synonym of Yponomeuta by Meyrick (1907, 1914b), Fletcher (1928, 1929), Friese (1960) and Diakonoff (1967). Moriuti (1977) restored its generic status. This interpretation was retained by Jin et al. (2015).