Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 17, 2026

Herminiinae

The Herminiinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae. The members of the subfamily are called litter moths because the caterpillars of most members feed on dead leaves of plants, though others feed on living leaves, and/or the mushrooms of fungi as in the case of genus Idia.

Last revised
Jul 17, 2026
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≈ 1 min
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Source
Herminiinae
Herminia grisealis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Superfamily: Noctuoidea
Family: Erebidae
Subfamily: Herminiinae
Leach, 1815
Synonyms
  • Herminiidae

The Herminiinae are a subfamily of moths in the family Erebidae.1 The members of the subfamily are called litter moths because the caterpillars of most members feed on dead leaves of plants, though others feed on living leaves, and/or the mushrooms of fungi as in the case of genus Idia.

Taxonomy

The subfamily was previous treated as a separate family, Herminiidae, or as a subfamily of the family Noctuidae. Phylogenetic analysis has determined that the Herminiinae are most closely related to the subfamily Aganainae of the Erebidae.2

Phalaenophana caught by Drosera filiformis. source ↗

Genera

Example species

References

References

  1. Lafontaine, Donald; Schmidt, Christian (19 Mar 2010). "Annotated check list of the Noctuoidea (Insecta, Lepidoptera) of North America north of Mexico". ZooKeys (40): 26. doi:10.3897/zookeys.40.414.
  2. Zahiri, Reza; et al. (2011). "Molecular phylogenetics of Erebidae (Lepidoptera, Noctuoidea)". Systematic Entomology. 37: 102–124. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3113.2011.00607.x. S2CID 84249695.
External links