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BOOK REVIEWS
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 57(3), 2003, 251-252
Pterophoroidea & Alucitoidea, by C. Gielis, World Catalogue of Insects 4: 1-198, H. van der Wolf (Editor), Apollo Books; Publication: 2003; hardback; ISBN 87-88757-68-4; Price excluding postage and 10% discount if ordered directly from Apollo Books: DKK 320,00 (about 46 US$). See www.apollobooks.com
This is the fourth volume of the World Catalogue of Insects series and the first to treat Lepidoptera. The treatment covers all known taxa of Pterophoroidea (1139 species) and Alucitoidea (205 species), the plume moths and the many-plumed moths respectively
The book is divided in 11 parts. The first one is a short summary where unfortunately the name Agdistopidae is introduced in error for Macropirati-dae. Six new synonyms are recorded in an inconsistent manner as each pair of names should have been mentioned in their original combination, which is the case for two of the six pairs. In two cases where the new combination of the oldest name is mentioned, the parentheses are missing. And at least one new synonym, encountered on page 21, is not listed in the summary. Also, the author writes that a new species is mentioned whereas what is actually mentioned is a new name; consequently, the abbreviation nam. nov. should have been used instead of spec. n.
The second part is a four-page introduction that provides background information, an explanation on how the data are presented in the Catalogue, a useful list of the family-group names and genera with their respective numbers of species, and the acknowledgements. Here the reader will find that the author has elected to go against Article 31.2 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and use the original spelling of species names in lieu of making them agree in gender with their generic name. There has been and still is debate around that question and a number of people don't like this Codes article, but until the Code is changed, I believe that it should be followed. Moreover, this decision is not consistently applied as exemplified by the combination Diacrotricha lanceata (Arenberger) and others. Part of the introduction is dedicated to the delimitation of the seven biogeographical regions used throughout the Catalogue to record distribution data. One of these, the Pacific region, is said to include New Zealand, Micronesia, the Hawaiian and Galapagos archipelagos, etc. As far as is known the Lepidopteran fauna of the Galapagos is 100% Neotropical in origin, so the decision to exclude them from this region is not scientifically
sound. My last comment regarding this introduction relates to the quality of the language, which is poor, with several spelling mistakes. For example, the word "catalogue" is misspelled twice in the first paragraph.
Parts 3 and 4 of the book are the catalogues of Pterophoroidea and Alucitoidea. The Pterophoroidea are divided here into Pterophoridae and Macropirati-dae, the latter containing only the three species of Agdistopis. The Alucitoidea include the Alucitidae (186 species) and the Tineodidae (19 species), two groups that are not divided into subfamilies. The Pterophoridae are divided into four subfamilies following the author's revision of the group (Gielis 1993). The subfamilies, the tribes of Pterophorinae and all genera are arranged phylogenetically, and the species are all arranged in alphabetical order.
The presentation of each valid name in bold face with proper indentations for the following list of synonyms as well as hostplant and distribution data makes for an easy consultation. The list of taxa appears complete, but it is unfortunately tinted by the presence of a few of the author's new names that are in press in other publications. Their appearance here will only confuse recorders of nomenclature in the future. I have checked for the accuracy of only a few entries and I have found that some information is missing, such as the new distribution and hostplant data for the species I treated in my second Galapagos Pterophoridae paper (Landry 1993). In addition, spelling mistakes are unfortunately rather frequent for country and hostplant names, and the names of the hostplant descriptors are not consistently mentioned. Also, if a line reaches the margin of the page and a word is cut, the required hyphen is consistently missing, and I noticed a problem in the use of the diacritic marks for the name of I. Capuse (see pp. 73, 74). One error in the list of Alucita names is that A. montana is attributed to Cockerell, while it was actually made valid by Barnes and Lindsey.
Part 5 lists the only known fossil species for the two superfamilies while part 6 is the "Comprehensive Reference List," which indeed seems comprehensive, but here also the cut words at the end of sentences are not hyphenated. Parts 7 to 11 are the indexes to the Dipterous parasites, the Hymenopterous parasites, the hostplants by generic name, which reduces its usefulness, the taxa of Alucitoidea, and the taxa of Pterophoroidea inclusive of synonyms. I believe the last two indexes should have been fused, to improve the use of the Alucitoidea index, which is presented before that of the Pterophoroidea.
This new resource on the World species of Alucitoidea and Pterophoroidea will be necessary to a wide
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range of people interested in these taxa because it appears to fulfill the three most important criteria for usefulness of this type of publication: 1—the systemat-ics is up-to-date; 2—the available scientific names are all recorded; and 3—the orthography of these names is correct except for the agreement in gender of the species names. Moreover, the citations of original publication information of the moths' names also appears recorded free of errors and the list of references is comprehensive. However, there is some missing information in the hostplant and distribution data, and poor editing of these data and other parts, which is very unfortunate given the costs and efforts involved, as this may cause one to become suspicious of the quality of the rest of the information presented. I can only rec-
ommend that the future installments of the series be reviewed and edited more carefully. On a final positive note, the quality of the binding and paper are excellent.
I thank Ivan Lobl and Jeff Wells for their comments on the manuscript.
Literature Cited
Gielis, C. 1993. Generic revision of the superfamily Pterophoroidea (Lepidoptera). Zoologische Verhandelingen, Leiden 290:1-139.
Landry, B. 1993. Additions to the knowledge of the Pterophoridae (Lepidoptera) of the Galapagos archipelago, Ecuador, with descriptions of two new species. Zoologische Mededelingen, Leiden 67:473-485.
Bernard Landry, Museum d'histoire naturelle, C.P. 6434, CH-1211 Geneva 6, Sivitzerland
Date of Issue (Vol. 57, No. 3): 29 September 2003