Cossidae, Leach, 1815

Ahmad, Jalil, Joshi, Rahul & Singh, Navneet, 2023, An updated Catalogue of Cossoidea (Lepidoptera) from India, Zootaxa 5330 (3), pp. 301-348 : 303-305

Family Cossidae

Cossidae (carpenter moths or goat moths) is universally distributed with 971 globally known species (Nieukerken et al. 2011). Adults are mostly grey in colour, small to very large, usually robust; some have long, narrow wings and resemble hawk moths. Antennae are less than half the length of forewing, usually bipectinate, rarely filiform, serrate, or unipectinate in male, usually filiform in female. Many species mimic twigs, barks and leaves. Caterpillars are smooth with a few hairs and they have an unpleasant smell, hence also known as ‘goat moths’. First catalogue of the family was published by the Dalla-Tore (1923) with nearly 500 species belonging to 57 genera including 35 species with eight genera from Indian region. However, the firstever catalogue of Indian cossidae was documented by Arora (1976), reporting only 31 species. Yakovlev (2011) published a catalogue of family Cossidae from the Old world. In the recent years, many new Indian taxa of Cossidae were described by Yakovlev (2005, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2019, 2021).

At present, 47 species in 26 genera of Cossidae are known from India under three subfamilies; Catoptinae (two species in one genus), Cossinae (11 species in eight genera), and Zeuzerinae (35 species in 19 genera).