Micronoctuidae Fibiger, 2005

FIBIGER, MICHAEL, 2010, Revision of the Micronoctuidae (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea) Part 3, Taxonomy of the Tactusinae, Zootaxa 2583 (1), pp. 1-119 : 9-11

family Micronoctuidae Fibiger, 2005

Micronoctuidae Fibiger, 2005 . Family Micronoctuidae Fibiger, 2005 , family nov. p. 33, in Fibiger and Lafontaine 2005. A review of the higher classification of the Noctuoidea ( Lepidoptera ) with special reference to the Holarctic fauna. Esperiana 11: 33.

Type genus: Micronoctua Fibiger, 1997 .

Diagnosis. Family characterised by many autapomorphic character states (apo.). Descriptions by Fibiger (in Fibiger and Lafontaine 2005) and Lafontaine and Fibiger (2006) summarised and expanded by Fibiger (2007; 2008), and further enlarged here. Characters listed in second part of revision marked by asterisk*; new characters added or expanded here marked by two asterisks**.

Imago (external). Head: short, bent downward.

Frons: smoothly rounded.

Clypeofrons: full and smoothly scaled (apo.).

*Proboscis: well developed, rarely a little reduced.

Eye: large, round.

Ocelli: present.

Labial palps: almost porrect or slightly upturned.

**Patagia: mushroom shaped, with a long stem, and with only half of ‘screen;’ long so ‘screen’ in another horizontal layer above thorax (apo.).

Colour of head, patagia, and all or part of base of costa: black to dark brown (apo.).

*Thorax: concolorous with forewing ground colour.

Size: extremely small (wingspan: 5.7–15 mm, excluding fringe; in largest species 19 mm, incl. fringes).

**Venation: mid cell in both forewing and hindwing without distal border, so each wing divided in two clusters of veins; hindwing venation strongly reduced (apo.)

**Forewing venation: intermediate between trifid and quadrifid position of Noctuoidea, i.e., vein M 2 in forewing four-fifths of distance down ‘cell’ (apo.).

Hindwing venation: bifid (cubital vein two-branched) (apo.). Other noctuoids with cubital vein either trifid or quadrifid, except Lithosiina Billberg, 1820 (sensu Lafontaine and Fibiger 2006), which has a modified trifid hindwing (i.e., M3 and Cu stalked between cell and termen).

Reniform stigma: pure yellow, whitish yellow, to light grey, outlined by black or brown (apo.).

Orbicular and claviform stigmata: absent (apo.).

Hindwing: terminal margin invaginated below apex.

Tibial spurs: present.

**Tympanum: circular, large, transparent.

**Tympanal nodular sclerite: absent (apo.) (in Noctuoidea also absent in Notodontidae and Doidae , present in all Noctuidae ); only structure visible in tympanum is nerve-attachment in centre.

*Tympanal hood: absent (apo.).

**Pockets around tympanum: none (apo.).

Abdomen: first two segments with long-scaled, often blackish dorsal tufts.

**Abdominal tip of males: parts of genitalia very often exceeding long distal scales of 7 th and 8 th segment (apo.).

**Abdomen, tip of females: often lighter coloured, light brown or yellow, than rest of abdomen; telescopic ovipositor lobes retracted into cone of 7 th, but most often 6 th segment.

segments fully extended; ventral part which often has a clearly visible round, long-scaled patch, presumably where pheromone-glands reaches surface, is expanded/arched.

**Calling and/or answering by male: pheromone glands of males and dense scent-brushes of long, hairlike scales present most frequently on tip of abdomen, or on femur and tarsus of third hind-leg (see photos in Fibiger 2007); or as strongly transformed ventral half of hindwing (see photos of imagines in Fibiger 2007).

**Resting position: flat, with ventral margins of forewings slightly overlapping.

* Imago behaviour characters. *Imago: adults fly by night, not by day, dusk or dawn.

*Imago: adults fly and crawl extremely fast, faster than any other observed Lepidoptera of similar size; no lepidopterists have been able to report pattern of flight (apo.).

*Imago: adults have not been observed on sugar, but both sexes feed willingly in captivity on pineapple juice.

*Female: usually lays no more than 20 eggs; one specimen from Africa laid 24 eggs, but five of them were abnormal, without foetus (apo.).

**Eggs, larvae, and pupae: by implication larvae must be extremely successful, and must have a survival strategy in which only few eggs, larvae or pupae killed/eaten by predators (apo).

*Generations: multivoltine; one species has been calculated to have more than 15 generations in a year; larvae usually hatch within 2–4 days, 1 st instar observed to last only 1½ days; 2 nd in 2½ days (apo.).

Male genitalia. **Sternite: no species of Tactusinae have specialised sternite.

**Tergite: no species of Tactusinae have specialised tergite.

Uncus: lost (apo.).

Fultura superior: transformed into complex configurations in some species, apparently in compensation for lost uncus (apo.).

**Transtilla: absent (apo.) (as in some ancestral families of Noctuoidea; - but present in all Noctuidae (s.l. )).

**Valvae: fused basally, both ventrally and/or dorsally; most often by an extension of ventral saccular edge of valva; sometimes also from dorsal part (in that having a transtillalike function); this or these straplike band(s) snaps easily when valvae spread) (apo.).

Cucullus: absent (apo.).

Ampulla: platelike (apo.).

**Pollex: prominent in subgenus Pollexinae ; resembles a second platelike lobe of valva (which it not) (apo.).

*Juxta-anellus: usually strongly fused; with a hole for phallus (apo.) (tight coils or small or large processes on phallus sometimes makes it impossible to remove it from hole).

** Phallus: clockwise-coiled; heavily sclerotised throughout (apo.); natural position of phallus as illustrated of those of Asytegumen absurdus , new species; and Duplex horakae , new species (see also in first and second parts of revision).

**Mating: vesica long, cylindrical, most often without cornuti; so-called lock-and-key function of other Lepidoptera generally replaced in Micronoctuidae by a clockwise coiled phallus, often with multiple spirals and multiple sharp pointed processes of phallus (apo.), met in female by corresponding, equally complicated structures ventrally and laterally of often heavily sclerotised 6 th, 7 th, and 8 th abdominal segments, including ante- and postvaginal plates and pockets, vestiture, displaced ostium, conelike antrum, and often heavily armed ductus bursae, inside (apo.).

**Vesica: everted or partly everted vesicae can be observed here in Tactusa schnacki , new species; Longiantrum burmaensis , new species; and Clarior kitchingi , new species (see also in first and second parts of revision).

**Posterior apophysis: sticklike throughout.

**Abdominal segments seven and eight: most often fused, but rarely in subfamily Tactusinae .

**Ostium: often displaced anterior to middle of 7 th segment or beyond, and frequently displaced to left (ostium morphologically part of segment eight, but in Micronoctuidae it is very often fused with seventh segment, which is slightly differently sclerotised) (apo.).

Signum: single; cross shaped, some X slightly folded along cross-bar with anterior and posterior parts of cross expanded (apo.).

Eggs and larvae. **Eggs: typical of Noctuoidea, slightly broader than high (photos to be published in a later part of revision).

**First instars: unknown between 2 nd instar of larva and imago (photos and drawings of first and second instar larvae to be published in a later part of revision).

**Larvae: move in full loops in two known instars (apo.).

**Larval abdomen: prolegs absent from segments three and four; prolegs 5 and 6 present; segments three and four extremely long; segment 5–10 extremely short, making appearence and movements similar to those of a geometrid larva (apo.); in resting position or if alarmed body becomes curved (in that differing from geometrids; Nola larvae have 3 prolegs, or 4, 5, or 6).

Setae: D1 absent on metathorax (Matti Ahola pers. comm.) (apo.).

Setae: L2 on meso- and metathorax greatly reduced (Matti Ahola pers. comm.) (apo.).

**Distribution. Only in Old World; mainly in tropics and subtropics, but also in temperate zone of East Asia. In very many different biotopes: sand desert, stone desert, semi-desert, grass steppe, bush steppe, steppe with bushes and trees, savanna, open dry forest, dense dry forest, moist forest (always deciduous forest), and rainforest. Micronoctuidae range across about half of Earth : in longitude from 13º West ( Sierra Leone in Africa ) to 168º East ( Vanuatu in Melanesia , in Pacific ); in latitude from 51º North ( Russia, Far East , Komsomolsk , north of Vladivostok ) to 34º South (by Cape Town , Republic of South Africa; in South-East to 31º ( Australia, northern New South Wales); in altitude from sea level (many places) to 3150 m ( Yemen).