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Taxonomy
Riodinidae
EOL Text
Pupa life history description:
Riodinids usually pupate as solitary individuals. They may pupate in leaf litter, crannies in tree bark, rolled leaves, and some even in ant nests. Some species of Hades, Euselasia, and Emesis do pupate gregariously.
Larval food items include:
Highly diverse diet. Include:
Larval food habits description:
Among all the butterflies, riodinids and lycaenids have the broadest range of food items, including plant leaves and flowers, insects, insect secretions. They also show great diversity in terms of their patterns of host use, ranging from specialist feeders (e.g. THisbe irenea), to generalists which may feed on plants fro more than a dozen families.
Systematic and taxonomic history:
Nomenclature: Although Erycinidae Swainson 1827 appears to be a senior name to Riodinidae Grote 1895, the type genus Erycina Fabricius 1807 is a junior homonym of Erycina Lamarck 1805 (a genus of bivalve mollusk). A family-group name cannot be based on a generic name that is a junior homonym (ICZN Article 39), so Swainson's Erycinidae is invalid. The Commission ruled (ICZN opinion 1073, 1977) that the family group name for this taxon should be Riodinidae Grote 1895 (1827), based on the replacement generic name Riodina that was selected by Westwood [1851], even though there are alternative family-group names with priority (e. g., Nemeobiinae Bates [1868]; Mesosemiini Bates 1859). (Bates employed Erycinidae as the family-group name for these subordinate taxa). This is one of the more confusing puzzles in butterfly nomenclature. The Riodinidae have been included in the Lycaenidae as the subfamily Riodininae by Ehrlich (1958) and by Kristensen (1976).
The tree shown is implied by classifications of Harvey (1987), Corbet et al. (1992), Campbell et al. (2000), Hall (2003) and Lamas (2004), and should be viewed as an informal hypothesis in need of corroboration.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | Andrew V. Z. Brower, Tree of Life web project |
| Source | http://tolweb.org/Riodinidae/12174 |
Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) Stats
Specimen Records:4423
Specimens with Sequences:3931
Specimens with Barcodes:3756
Species:404
Species With Barcodes:360
Public Records:2004
Public Species:155
Public BINs:146
Life histories and blog on survey of species of Riodinidae in Colombia.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | Gregory Nielsen, Gregory Nielsen |
| Source | http://riodinidae.org/blog/ |
Introduction:
Riodinidae are a pantropical family, with the majority of species occurring in the neotropics.
Riodinidae are a pantropical family, with the majority of species occurring in the neotropics.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | Andrew V. Z. Brower, Tree of Life web project |
| Source | http://tolweb.org/Riodinidae/12174 |
Although Erycinidae Swainson 1827 appears to be a senior name to Riodinidae Grote 1895, the type genus Erycina Fabricius 1807 is a junior homonym of Erycina Lamarck 1805 (a genus of bivalve mollusk). A family-group name cannot be based on a generic name that is a junior homonym (ICZN Article 39), so Swainson's Erycinidae is invalid. The Commission ruled (ICZN opinion 1073, 1977) that the family group name for this taxon should be Riodinidae Grote 1895 (1827), based on the replacement generic name Riodina that was selected by Westwood [1851], even though there are alternative family-group names with priority (e. g., Nemeobiinae Bates [1868]; Mesosemiini Bates 1859). (Bates employed Erycinidae as the family-group name for these subordinate taxa). This is one of the more confusing puzzles in butterfly nomenclature.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | Andrew V. Z. Brower, Tree of Life web project |
| Source | http://tolweb.org/Riodinidae/12174 |
Geographic Range:
Nearctic, Palearctic, Oriental, Ethiopian, Neotropical, Australian, Oceanic Island
Geographic Range description:
World-wide distribution, but occur mostly in the Neotropics.