Title: A Revision of the American Genus Anisota (Saturniidae)
Abstract:IntroductionMichener (1952) revised the Satumiidae of the Western Hemisphere at the generic level, but except for occasional mention of species, these were not treated.Recent discovery of new species ...IntroductionMichener (1952) revised the Satumiidae of the Western Hemisphere at the generic level, but except for occasional mention of species, these were not treated.Recent discovery of new species of the genus Anisota Huebner in Ontario, Texas, South Carolina, and Mexico made it desirable to do research into the morphology of all related species, and as no details have been published about the adults and immature stages of all the North and Central American species of Anisota since Packard (1905) and Bouvier (1931), it seemed advisable to summarize our Imowledge in this paper. Higher ClassificationThe genus Anisota belongs to the moth family Satumiidae belonging to the superfamily Bombycoidea which also includes Lasiocampidae and Bombycidae (Ferguson, 1971).The correct subfamily name has been, and continues to be, disputed.Lemaire (1976) indicated that Adelocephalinae, Boisduval 1868, is the correct name.Earlier authors used other names such as Diyocampinae, Ceratocampinae, and Syssphinginae.The name Citheroniinae has had wide usage, even in recent works (Michener, 1952; Ferguson, 1971).The subfamily has frequently been elevated to family rank under the various names throughout much of the literature (i.e., Citheroniidae, Syssphingidae).Whether considered a family or subfamily, the group is clearly a monophyletic assemblage.It is one of the more primitive subfamilies of Satumiidae 'and is exclusively New World in distribution.Most genera and species are neotropical; Anisota is in fact, the only predominantly nearctic genus of the subfamily, excepting the allied Dryocampa Harris.Michener (1952) and Ferguson (197 1) characterized the subfamily morphologically -it is our purpose from here on to deal only with the genus Anisota.As the lists of synonyms indicate, species of Anisota have often appeared in the literature under several generic names (Adelocephala, Dryocampa, etc.).Fortunately however, the name Anisota has rarely been applied to species which are not tme Anisota, an exception being the Brazilian Psigida apollinairei (Dognin) which Grote (1867) redesciibed as Anisota walkeri.Michener (1952) subdivided the genus Anisota into two subgenera: Dryocampa and Anisota, the characters of which may be found in Table 9 of his paper.Read More