Paleolepidopterites Kozlov, 2018

Heikkilä, Maria, Brown, John W., Baixeras, Joaquin, Mey, Wolfram & Kozlov, Mikhail V., 2018, Re-examining the rare and the lost: a review of fossil Tortricidae (Lepidoptera), Zootaxa 4394 (1), pp. 41-60 : 53

Paleolepidopterites Kozlov , new collective group

Description. The collective group name Paleolepidopterites is proposed for fossil Lepidoptera that cannot be placed with certainty in any known family. Therefore, the diagnosis of this collective group is identical to the diagnosis of the order Lepidoptera (published e.g. by Kozlov et al. 2002).

Etymology: from παλαιός (palaios), Ancient Greek = old; λεπίς (lepis), Ancient Greek = scale; πτερov (pteron), Ancient Greek = wing.

Comments. Collective group names ending with ‘-ites’ are commonly used for fossil insect species, especially Lepidoptera , whose taxonomic placement is not entirely convincing or for which only family-level association is assured ( Sohn et al. 2012; Sohn & Lamas 2013). Such names are valid according to the code (ICZN 4th edition, Articles 20, 23.7 and 42.2.1) and are subject to the rules for genus-group nomenclature, except that collective groups have no type species. The erection of the new collective group, Paleolepidopterites , is motivated by the impossibility to keep the three following fossils within the collective group Tortricites , because these fossils, most likely, do not belong to the family Tortricidae .

The collective group Tortricites Kozlov, 1988 , in accordance with ICZN 4th edition, Article 42.3.1, was described without indicating the type species. Later on, Gilligan et al. (2014) mentioned T. sadilenkoi Kozlov, 1988 as the type species of Tortricites . However, this action is invalid and does not affect the validity of this collective group name, Tortricites , in spite of the transfer of T. sadilenkoi into a new collective group, Paleolepidopterites .