Heterobathmia Kristensen & Nielsen, 1979

Hünefeld, Frank & Kristensen, Niels P., 2012, Two new heterobathmiid moth species with distinctive female genital configurations (Lepidoptera: Heterobathmiidae), Zootaxa 3281, pp. 61-68 : 62

Genus Heterobathmia Kristensen & Nielsen, 1979

Reference may be made to the original description of the genus for an account of principal structural features. Taxonomically informative characters, if any, in the body vestiture (development, colouration) remain to be worked out. While a number of characters in the wing venation (e.g., presence/course of cross-vein R-Rs1, relative positions of forks R/Rs and M/Cu, development of cross-vein M-CuA) have been ascribed significance in species discrimination and/or intrageneric grouping ( Kristensen & Nielsen 1979, 1998), our subsequent examination of larger specimen samples have disclosed an intraspecific variability in these characters which now lead us to question their usefulness. Well-preserved wing patterns are sometimes diagnostic, and indeed intact specimens of the two species here described are characteristic by much more extensive silvery-white forewing scaling than present in the previously named taxa; however, critical species identification usually requires examination of the genitalia.