Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
 

Clickable Guide

Interactive image map to choose major taxa Moths Butterflies Flies Caterpillars Flies Dragonflies Flies Mantids Cockroaches Bees and Wasps Walkingsticks Earwigs Ants Termites Hoppers and Kin Hoppers and Kin Beetles True Bugs Fleas Grasshoppers and Kin Ticks Spiders Scorpions Centipedes Millipedes

Calendar

Upcoming Events

National Moth Week was July 19-27, and the Summer 2025 gathering in Louisiana, July 19-27

Photos of insects and people from the 2024 BugGuide gathering in Idaho July 24-27

Moth submissions from National Moth Week 2024

Photos of insects and people from the 2022 BugGuide gathering in New Mexico, July 20-24

Photos of insects and people from the Spring 2021 gathering in Louisiana, April 28-May 2

Photos of insects and people from the 2019 gathering in Louisiana, July 25-27

Family Tineidae - Clothes Moths

Representative Images

Moth - Isocorypha mediostriatella Please help us to identify this guy. - Acrolophus mortipennella Eastern Grass-tubeworm Moth? - Acrolophus plumifrontella Opogona omoscopa? - Opogona omoscopa Nemapogon geniculatella 3033208 moth - Dyotopasta yumaella Laurinburg moth unknown 2021 1 - Acrolophus popeanella Pennsylvania Moth - Nemapogon acapnopennella
Show images of: caterpillars · adults · both

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths)
Superfamily Tineoidea (Tubeworm, Bagworm, and Clothes Moths)
Family Tineidae (Clothes Moths)

Explanation of Names

From genus Tinea Linnaeus, 1758.

Numbers

There are currently 9 recognized subfamilies in our area with an additional two potentially undescribed subfamilies. 190 species in 54 genera in our area (1). 15 subfamilies, 320 genera, and more than 3,000 known species worldwide.

Food

Larvae feed on lichens, fungi, and dead leaves.(2)

Internet References

Wikipedia--Tineidae
Natural History Museum-- Global Taxonomic Database

Works Cited

1.Annotated taxonomic checklist of the Lepidoptera of North America, North of Mexico
Pohl, G.R., Patterson, B., & Pelham, J.P. 2016. ResearchGate.net.
2.Hidden Company that Trees Keep: Life from Treetops to Root Tips
James B. Nardi. 2023. Princeton University Press.
Contributed by tom murray on 17 July, 2005 - 10:43pm
Additional contributions by cotinis, john and jane balaban, Beatriz Moisset, anitagould, Chuck Entz, Randy Hardy, Marci Hess, Kyhl Austin
Last updated 24 September, 2023 - 10:36am

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