Afrotropical Gracillariidae

Gracillariidae are small moths with a wingspan varying from 4 – 16 mm. Larvae of almost all Gracillariidae are leaf miners, some others form galls or live in the bark.
This website provides an on-line Checklist of Afrotropical Gracillariidae updated with the latest information obtained from various sources (see Acknowledgements) and from our own studies. It holds information on 229 species belonging to 46 genera and 3 subfamilies and is illustrated with images of representatives of 132 species. The faunistic data from the labels under the photographed specimens will be added in due course, since recently many new localities became known. The sign after a species name indicates the presence of that species in the collection of the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren. The information within the text of each species contains the reference to the original description, synonyms, type locality, type specimens and their deposition, distribution and hostplant of the larva. In the present checklist we follow the system proposed by Kristensen, 1999 to arrange the species into three subfamilies Gracillariinae, Lithocolletiinae and Phyllocnistinae. The sequence of genera and species within the genera are arranged alphabetically to enable the user to easily retrieve the necessary information.
Vári (1961) used the term "Metallotype" to indicate the first specimen of the opposite sex to the holotype, when this sex was unknown at the time of the description. We retain this term in the present website, as it may give extra information in future taxonomic studies.

Generic Names of Butterflies and Moths of the World
Caterpillar Host Plant Database

• "Lithocolletis zulella, n. s." — Walsingham, 1881. Transactions of the entomological Society of London 1881: 277, pl. 13, fig. 44, was originally described in the Gracillariidae, but belongs to the Tineidae. Its present generic combination is Oxymachaeris zulella (Walsingham, 1881).
• The systematic position of "Lithocolletis urticicolella n. sp." — Ghesquière, 1940. Annales du Musée du Congo belge, série III(II), 7(1): 20-21, is unknown. A preliminary study of the male genitalia of the holotype specimen has revealed that it does not belong to Phyllonorycter and not even to the Lithocolletinae. It has been omitted from the present list until its taxonomic position has been studied.
• "Lithocolletis triarcha, n. sp." — Meyrick, 1908. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 18: 811, has also been mentioned from South Africa, Transvaal, but it is a misidentification of a single specimen for this Indian species

BMNH Natural History Museum, London
HNHM Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest
MNHN Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
MRAC Musée Royal de l'Arique Centrale, Tervuren
NZSI National Zoological Collection, Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta
SAMC South African Museum, Cape Town
TMSA Transvaal Museum, Pretoria
ZMUC Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen
ZMHB Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Bereich Zoologisches Museum