Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #398118
Research Project: Systematics of Beetles, Flies, Moths and Wasps with an Emphasis on Agricultural Pests, Invasive Species, Biological Control Agents, and Food Security

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: Phylogenetic systematics, diversification, and biogeography of Puss Moths and Kittens (Lepidoptera; Notodontidae; Cerurinae) and description of a new genus

Author
item ST LAURENT, RYAN - Smithsonian Institute
item Goldstein, Paul
item MILLER, JAMES - American Museum Of Natural History
item MARKEE, AMANDA - Florida Museum Of Natural History
item STAUDE, HERMANN - University Of South Africa
item KAWAHARA, AKITO - Florida Museum Of Natural History
item MILLER, SCOTT - Smithsonian Research Institute
item ROBBINS, ROBERT - Smithsonian Research Institute

Submitted to: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/3/2023
Publication Date: 4/4/2023
Citation: St Laurent, R., Goldstein, P.Z., Miller, J.S., Markee, A., Staude, H., Kawahara, A.Y., Miller, S., Robbins, R. 2023. Phylogenetic systematics, diversification, and biogeography of Puss Moths and Kittens (Lepidoptera; Notodontidae; Cerurinae) and description of a new genus. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 7(2):1-25. https://doi.org/10.1093/isd/ixad004.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/isd/ixad004

Interpretive Summary: This paper presents the first phylogeny of an important subfamily of Prominent Moths knowns as “kittens,” which feed on willow trees and related plants, based on newly generated genomic data. It establishes the component genera, and describes a new genus. In addition, it tests how many times the group colonized the Americas, identifies multiple indepependent colonization events since the Miocene, and concludes that this group of moths diversified most rapidly in temperate climates. This work is of interest to entomologists, biogeographers, plant-herbivore sicentists, and evolutionary biologists.

Technical Abstract: We present the first dated molecular phylogeny of the ‘kitten’ moths (Notodontidae; Cerurinae), based on sequence data for 666 loci generated by anchored hybrid enrichment. Monophyly of Cerurinae is corroborated as is that of each of its included genera: Pararethona, Pseudorethona, Oreocerura stat. rev., Cerurella, Notocerura, Hampsonita, Afrocerura, Cerurina, Neoharpyia, Furcula, Neocerura, Americerura gen. nov., Cerura, and Kamalia. The type species of the Neotropical genus Tecmessa, T. annulipes, which had been incorrectly assigned to Cerurinae, is recovered in Heterocampinae, and Americerura gen. nov. is therefore described to receive 17 unambiguously cerurine species transferred from Tecmessa. Divergence time estimates recover a crown age of Notodontidae roughly coincident with the K-Pg boundary, and a late-Oligocene crown age for Cerurinae. An African origin is inferred for Cerurinae, followed by colonization of the Palearctic, the Americas, Indomalaya, and Australasia during the Miocene. At least three colonization events in the Americas are inferred, one in the mid-Miocene associated with ancestral Americerura gen. nov. and two in the Pliocene and Pleistocene within Furcula. We hypothesize that the global spread of Cerurinae was enabled by that of its primary larval foodplants in the Salicaceae. State-dependent diversification analyses suggest that cerurines diversified most rapidly in temperate climates.