title: Variable wing venation inAgathiphaga(Lepidoptera: Agathiphagidae) is key to understanding the evolution of basal moths.
abstract: Details of the ancestral groundplan of wing venation in moths remain uncertain, despite approximately a century of study. Here, we describe a 3-branched subcostal vein, a 5-branched medial vein and a 2-branched cubitus posterior vein on the forewing ofAgathiphaga vitiensisDumbleton 1952 from Vanuatu. Such veins had not previously been described in any Lepidoptera. Because wing veins are typically lost during lepidopteran evolutionary history, rarely-if ever-to be regained, the venation ofA. vitiensisprobably represents the ancestral character state for moths. Wing venation is often used to identify fossil insects as moths, because wing scales are not always preserved; the presence of a supposedly trichopteran 3-branched subcostal vein in crown Lepidoptera may decrease the certainty with which certain amphiesmenopteran fossils from the Mesozoic can be classified. And because plesiomorphic veins can influence the development of lepidopteran wing patterns even if not expressed in the adult wing, the veins described here may determine the location of wing pattern elements in many lepidopteran taxa.
authors.affiliation: Mississippi Entomological Museum, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA; Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA.
authors.forename: Sandra R
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3237-5619
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Schachat
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences , Victoria University , PO Box 600, Wellington 6140 , New Zealand.
authors.forename: George W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Gibbs
keywords: Amphiesmenoptera; development; disparity; morphology; phenotypic variation; polymorphism