Epipaschiinae


The Epipaschiinae are a subfamily of snout moths. More than 720 species are known today, which are found mainly in the tropics and subtropics. Some occur in temperate regions, but the subfamily is apparently completely absent from Europe, at least as native species. A few Epipaschiinae are crop pests that may occasionally become economically significant.

Description and ecology

Adult females are often hard to distinguish from related lineages, and even the larvae do not possess the characteristic sclerotized bristle base near the start of the abdomen, whose position is a tell-tale mark of the other subfamilies of Pyralidae.
By contrast, the adult males of Epipaschiinae are easier to recognize, and three of their traits support the assumption that Epipaschiinae are a natural, monophyletic group:
  1. an always upturned and pointed third segment of the labial palpi
  2. a ventrally curved phallobase of the male which usually extends beyond the ductus ejaculatorius
  3. the weakly sclerotized tegumen
In addition, in most cases the adult males of this subfamily have a conspicuous scaled projection from the scape of the antennae.
The caterpillar larvae are leaf rollers, leaf tiers and leaf miners. As pests, they infest such diverse plants as Persea americana, Swietenia, or Zea mays. However, they are usually a mere nuisance and do not cause large-scale crop failure.

Systematics

Alma Solis provided a phylogenetic analysis of 20 genera of the Pococera complex, consisting of some 300 species in the Western Hemisphere.