Proceedings of 

 the United States 

 National Museum 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Volume 116 1964 Number 3493 



NORTH AMERICAN STENOMIDAE 

 (LEPIDOPTERA: GELECHIOIDEA) 



By W. Donald Duckworth 



Introduction 



This is a review of the North American moths of the family Sten- 

 omidae, a large family of Microlepidoptera that is especially abundant 

 in Central and South America, where it is represented by hundreds 

 of species of remarkable diversity in size, shape, and color. In North 

 America the family is represented by 24 species in 6 genera, widely 

 distributed throughout the United States and parts of Canada. 



Formerly, identification of species in the Stenomidae rested almost 

 solely on coloration and, to a lesser extent, on wing venation. Higher 

 categories, for the most part, were based on wing venation. In recent 

 years, it has been discovered that genitalic characters in the Sten- 

 omidae, as in other groups of Lepidoptera, are of value in the separa- 

 tion and definition of closely related species. It seems obvious that 

 the genitalia, in addition to their usefulness in identifying species, 

 have a place of primary importance in characterizing genera. The 

 present study also indicates that the genitalia provide valuable 

 characters for classification at family level. 



Busck (1921a) recognized the value of genital characters to higher 

 category concepts and transferred the genus Setiostoma Zeller from 



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