HISTORY OF THE ERMINE MOTH (LEPIDOPTERA: YPONOMEUTIDAE) STUDY IN THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST AND ADJACENT COUNTRIES

Abstract

As a result of the analysis of the history of the family Yponomeutidae study the three conditional stages were outlined mainly based on the used research methods. The first stage, which began in the first half of XVIII century and ended at the beginning of the XX century, covers the period from the first descriptions with illustrations of larva nests and the external features of the preimaginal and imaginal stages to the use of genital characters in the species identification. From the latter the second stage starts and ends before the introduction of the molecular genetic method for study of taxonomic diversity. During this stage the study of the ermine moths were expanded to comparative morphological research, elucidation of the homology of genital structures based on their functional morphology and development of taxonomy based on phylogenetic analyses. The third stage begins from the end of XX century, when researchers started to use molecular markers to solve taxonomic problems in the group. According to the results of many years of research, the fauna of yponomeutid moths has been studied in Russia and adjacent countries very unevenly and, in general, insufficiently. Currently, the species diversity of ermine moths in the Russian Far East is 38 species from 10 genera, significantly inferior to that of China (70 species of 17 genera) and less to that in Japan (46 species of 16 genera). However, the species diversity of ermine moths in the Russian Far East exceeds the known diversity of this group in Korea (25 species from 10 genera).