Brachodidae, Agenjo, 1966

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

Family Brachodidae

Brachodidae (little bear moths) is a small family with 160 described species worldwide (Nieukerken et al. 2011) and is widely distributed except North America. Brachodidae are unusual due to their exclusive association with monocotyledonous hostplants, including grasses, sedges and palms. Brachodids are small to medium sized robust moths, mostly diurnal with hindwing having noticeably enlarged anal field and the abdomen usually extends beyond the hindwings in set specimens (Kallies 2016). The Brachodidae of the Oriental region and adjacent areas was revised by Kallies (1998, 2004, 2013). The Brachodidae comprises three subfamilies viz., Brachodinae , Pseudocossinae and Phycodinae ( Kallies 2013) , although, the African subfamily Pseudocossinae was treated under Cossidae by Yakovlev (2011).

At present, 13 species in six genera of Brachodidae are known from India and are mainly distributed in Himalayas, North East India, southern India, central India and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.