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Key to Families of Macromoths in California David Hembry, University of California at Berkeley |
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This key will allow you to identify large moths ("macromoths") in California. Since there are perhaps more than 1,500 species of macromoths in California alone, this key only allows you to identify moths to family (of which we have 11 in California). This key will be useful elsewhere in North America, particularly in other Pacific Coast states, but there are some macromoth families present in the Southwest and eastern United States that are lacking in California. Macromoths and butterflies together form a clade (evolutionarily natural group), the Macrolepidoptera (called "macroleps" for short). It is not difficult to distinguish butterflies from moths. See "Moths vs. butterflies" for more details. Not all large moths are Macrolepidoptera, although most are. Several families of "microlepidoptera" ("micromoths") can grow as large as macromoths and may be confused with them. At this point, this key does not allow you to identify these families, although you can learn more about them from "Macromoths vs. micromoths". This key is designed to be used to make it easier to identify moths from live specimens, or from dead specimens that have not been properly prepared. Lepidopterists (scientists and amateurs who study moths and butterflies) pin their specimens and then spread the wings apart so that their details can easily be seen. Whereas this preparation is ideal and often necessary to distinguish certain moth families from each other, I have tried to write this key to be as useful as possible for people who just want to identify moths that they find live at lights or dead on the windowsill. However, I have included some of the more technical characters in this key because they are often necessary for identification of families. Find out more under "How to use this key". |
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