Family Lymantriidae - Tussock Moths

vaporers, vaporer moths (see below)

BugGuide currently follows the classification shown at All-Leps (See discussion here). Jean-Francois Landry and Don Lafontaine of Agriculture Canada, and John Burns and Scott Miller of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History are curators of the list, with assistance from others named at the bottom of this page. The classification of moths is continuously under study, and further changes are inevitable.

Lymantriidae is from Lymantria Huebner, the genus of the Old World (and introduced to North America) Gypsy Moth, Lymantria dispar. The origin of this name is not obvious. Perhaps from Greek lyma meaning destruction or filth (1). There is also a Greek word liman, meaning estuary, or referring to a particular European estuary, that of the Dnieper (Oxford English Dictionary).

"Tussock moths" for the tufts of hair on the caterpillars. (tussock = a tuft or clump of green grass or similar verdure, forming a small hillock--Wiktionary.) Another name used for the adult moths (esp. Orgyia)is, or was, "vaporers" or "vaporer moths" for the "vaporing" flight pattern (2).

One of seven North American families in the superfamily Noctuoidea (or eight families, if Pantheinae is given family status [Pantheidae], according to Kitching and Rawlins, 1999). All North American genera in this family belong to subfamily Lymantriinae

All-Leps shows 3 tribes, 6 genera, 32 species:

Leucomini:

Euproctis Hübner, 1819

Leucoma Hübner, 1822

Lymantriini:

Lymantria Hübner, 1819

Orgyiini:

Dasychira Hübner, 1809

Gynaephora Hübner, 1819

Orgyia Ochsenheimer, 1810

Wingspan 1.5-6.7 cm.

Medium sized. Females usually larger than males. Wings mostly brownish to grayish or white. Wings reduced to nubs or well developed in females of some species. Ocelli absent. Antennae bipectinate.

Larvae generally very hairy, usually with two anterior and two or three posterior long hair tufts.