Yponomeutidae, Stephens, 1829

Pohl, Greg, Anweiler, Gary, Schmidt, Christian & Kondla, Norbert, 2010, An annotated list of the Lepidoptera of Alberta, Canada, ZooKeys 38 (38), pp. 1-549 : 61

17. Yponomeutidae – ermine moths and needleminer moths

Minute to small ( 6–30 mm wingspan) moths, often with brightly marked wings. No morphological characters unequivocally define this family. Adults of some species rest with the head held close to the ground and the abdomen lifted; others sit with the body parallel to the substrate. Larvae have diverse habits, and the family includes communal web makers, needleminers, and leafminers.

The family Yponomeutidae , as currently defined, contains almost 600 species occurring in all faunal regions. Eighty-two species are known from North America; 14 species have been reported from AB, and a few others may be found here as well. Various workers have included the Ypsolophidae and Plutellidae in and/or have excluded the Argyresthiinae from the Yponomeutidae . As recognized by Dugdale et al. (1999), this family includes two main lineages, the ermine moths (subfamily Yponomeutinae ) and the needleminer moths (subfamily Argyresthiinae ). The family is in need of higher-level work, as well as species-level work. Useful publications include Busck (1907), Braun (1940), and Freeman (1960, 1972).