Talk:Lepidoptera

Biodiversity

• 155,181 described species (Pogue, 2009: 334) [excluding fossil taxa?]

• van Nieukerken et al., 2011 (reference on main page) say 15,578 genera, 157,424 species (fossils included; the latter comprise 50 genera, 86 species)

• there are also a couple of new families since that paper, namely Aenigmatineidae (in Kristensen et al., 2015) and Pseudobistonidae Minet, Rajaei & Stüning, 2015, refer Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_of_the_Lepidoptera) for refs etc.

• In its March 2020 version, IRMNG (data downloadable from Rees et al., 2020) presently lists 17,786 genera as "accepted" in Lepidoptera with a further 9,877 as "uncertain" (unassessed), although those values are not "expert assessed" in the same manner as other published sources. (Ref is Rees, Tony; Vandepitte, Leen; Vanhoorne, Bart; Decock, Wim (2020). "All genera of the world: an overview and estimates based on the March 2020 release of the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG)". Megataxa. 1: 123–140. doi:10.11646/megataxa.1.2.3)

Tony 1212 (talk) 22:15, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

References

• Pogue, M.G. 2009: Biodiversity of Lepidoptera. Pp. 325-355 in: Foottit, R.G.; Adler, P.H. (eds.) 2009: Insect biodiversity: science and society. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781405151429