Lepidoptera, Linnaeus, 1758

Prins, Jurate De, 2021, Twenty years for Zootaxa and ten years for Afromoths (Lepidoptera): a taxonomic interaction between the journal and an online relational database, Zootaxa 4979 (1), pp. 155-165 : 159

Families of Lepidoptera treated in Zootaxa

The family with the most descriptions of new species of Afrotropical moth species published in Zootaxa is Erebidae (66 species-group taxa), followed by Lecithoceridae (61), Tortricidae (52), Gracillariidae (43), Pterophoridae (33), and Geometridae (29) ( Fig. 4 ).

Other than the species-rich family Erebidae , the next four families that received the highest attention of the Zootaxa authors are all microlepidoptera. The species belonging to these families are usually dull-coloured and difficult to distinguish from each other. The popularity of families treated in Zootaxa mainly was linked with the productivity of taxonomists knowledgeable in a limited group, that seldom was treated by a broader community. In total 24 families of Lepidoptera from the Afrotropical region were expanded by the new species descriptions in Zootaxa ( Fig. 4 ).

Figures

FIGURE 4. Lepidoptera families with new species descriptions treated in Zootaxa 2001–2021.