Talk:Taxonomy of the Lepidoptera

Inaccuracy
I think this article is sometimes inaccurate with where the families are placed. I've already moved several, and removed a few superfamilies that don't exist (and those are just the taxa that I've checked!) I don't know if it's because this is an old article or if it had a bad source... So there's probably more problems here.  — Ypna • Ypna 23:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Based on Capinera. But if you are fixing it please give a latest complete list from somewhere as a base and detailed refs for changes. changes without refs are to no utility. AshLin (talk) 07:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So far the only changes I've made aren't sourced from outside Wikipedia. But yes, sure.  — Ypna • Ypna 06:37, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Superfamily Zygaenoidea appears twice, in sections Tineina and Cossina. Can someone check which is correct? &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 23:12, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

It is time to revisit this page and update following van Nieukirken et al., 2011. Order Lepidoptera Linnaeus, 1758. In:Zhang, Z.-Q. (ed.) Animal Biodiversity: an outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness. Zootaxa 3148: 212-221. HKmoths (talk) 06:09, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Revised per van Nieukirken et al. 2011
Having at least 1 lepidopterist advocating this course of action, several complaints about the status quo, and no contrary opinions, I went ahead I revised the page to follow the Zootaxa listing. Could somebody pls proofread and post an "all clear" here (so people will know it's checked) or make corrections?

There's no really good graphical solution for the 'spanning' clades. They're not very clear as listed in Zootaxa, but it's not practical to give each its own level (plus that artificially demotes the following groups). However, I didn't want to omit them, as they certainly provide information, plus doing so would introduce deviation between Wikipedia & the tax authority. I ended up indicating them with a text notation, "encompasses all remaining groups." If anybody has a better solution, or if there is some generally accepted convention (in the literature or in Wikipedia), by all means change it. No point reinventing the wheel here, esp if it's not a very good wheel.

I also rewrote the intro pgraph to use the more formal "basal" instead of "primitive"/"archaic" and to avoid any implication of a false parallelism between butterflies & moths. Gould363 (talk) 00:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Started some cleanup to the subtaxa: Attevinae --> Attevidae (fixing broken link), family list on Yponomeutoidea page. But there's plenty more to be done.

Gould363 (talk) 14:58, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

This and related articles are a damned unholy mess
I've been trying to assemble a halfway sensible taxonomy of butterflies and moths from this and related Wikipedia pages and it has proven to be utterly impossible because of all the contradictions. Some pages say that Monotrysia are within Heteroneura; others say Heteroneura is within Monotrysia. The page on Coelolepida says that it consists of "Acanthoctesia and Lophocoronina", and also comprises "all non-eriocraniid Glossata", but other pages say that Glossata includes far more groups than just Acanthoctesia, Lophocoronina, and Dacnonypha-Eriocraniidae. Can someone who knows something please straighten all this BS out, or at least provide a roadmap? 98.234.13.133 (talk) 23:52, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The taxonomy should be generally following the taxonomy in the Animal Biosdiversity article by van Nieukerken et al 2011 (see above section on this talk page), although there will be more recent additions. The structure used for the classification in the automatic taxobox should follow this taxonomy above families, but the taxobox subdivisions and text sometimes diverge in rarely edited articles.
 * In the particular cases you raise, Monotrysia and Ditrysia was a tradition division of Lepidoptera proposed by Börner based on the structure of female genitalia. Ditrysia is monophyletic, but Monotrysia sensu Börner is not and includes all the non-Ditrysians groups, some in Heteroneura and all those outside. A more recent classification used Monotrysia in a narrower sense as a division of Heteroneura, but this 'Monotrysia' forms a grade to Ditrysia and is no longer used as a taxon. However, monotrysian is sometimes used as an informal term for the nonditrysian Heteroneura. This history may explain contradictions in articles written at different times.
 * The Coelolepida page was wrong to say it consists of Acanthoctesia and Lophocoronina, but correct about comprising "all non-eriocraniid Glossata". Glossata has six infraorders, Dacnonypha (containing Eriocraniidae) and five non-eriocraniid infraorders. These include Acanthoctesia and Lophocoronina, as stated, but also includes three infraorders that form the clade Myoglossata: Neopseustina Exoporia, and Heteroneura. The confusion may have been caused by the indents in van Nieukerken et al 2011, which have all the nested clades at the same indent.
 * I've corrected Coelolepida. Can you point me to the pages giving different uses of Monotrysia? —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)