Fungus moths: a review of the Scardiinae (Lepidoptera: Tineidae) Gaden S. Robinson Department of Entomology, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD StiM ! hU ARY Contents Synopsis 37 Introduction 37 Techniques 40 Check-list of Scardiinae 41 Taxa excluded from the Scardiinae 43 Classification and characters -but phylogeny? 43 Objectives 43 Methods 43 Supraspecific groups (OTUs) classified 46 Characters used in classification 46 Results 50 Geographical distribution 58 Abbreviations 60 Acknowledgements 60 Scardiinae Eyer 61 References 135 Index to hostplants and fungi 180 Index to Lepidoptera 180 Synopsis This paper gives an account of the subfamily Scardiinae, the fungus moths. The group is redefined and 111 species in 23 genera are ascribed to it. Its previous taxonomic history and its biological and morphological characteristics are reviewed. Le Quesne tests show homoplasy to be rampant in the Scardiinae. Numerical phylogenetic methods are used with the aim of deriving a phylogenetic classification; their results are contrasted with those from various phenetic methods. Character-compatibility analysis is used to pinpoint 'robust' characters with minimal homoplasy. Groups defined by such characters are found to be also 'robust', being revealed by most of the analytical methods employed. The shortest optimized Wagner tree is adopted as the classification but the limited phylogenetic implications of this classification are stressed. The biogeography of the group is reviewed. Keys are provided to genera and species. Eight genera are described as new and one genus is recalled from synonymy. Twenty-six new species are described and 18 species are placed in new generic combinations; four new synonymies are established. Introduction The subfamily Scardiinae includes more than one hundred species of generally large and robust tineid moths. While the smallest species have a wingspan of only about 12 mm, the largest Scardiinae are among the biggest ditrysian Microlepidoptera, with wingspans of up to 60 mm. Despite their size, however, Scardiinae are not conspicuous. It is the biology of the Scardiinae that sets them apart, with one exception, from all other subfamilies of Lepidoptera. The larvae feed in either the fruiting body (sporophore) of persistent (hard) bracket-fungi, or in the wood of dead or moribund trees that has been permeated by the hyphae of such fungi. The traces left by feeding scardiinae larvae are characteristic -ramifying accretions of loosely webbed coarse frass forming a cover for surface and sub-surface feeding, usually combined with similar volcano-shaped accretions of frass or Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (Ent.) 52 (2): 37-181 Issued 24 April 1986
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