Family BLASTOBASIDAE
Compiler and date details
March 2012 - You Ning Su, with advice from Ted Edwards, Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Canberra
Introduction
[After Edwards in Nielsen et al. (1996: 100)].
This is a small family with few Australian species. The Australian species were revised by Meyrick (1902c) and reviewed by Turner (1947b). Common (1990) gave a useful outline of the family. All Australian species are currently placed in Blastobasis Zeller but any revision of the group will change this. Adamski and Brown (1989) published a reivison of North American species which may serve as a basis for an examination of the Australian species. The biology of few species is known but it appears they may be scavengers or detritus feeders.
General References
Adamski, D. & Brown, R.L. 1989. Morphology and systematics of North American Blastobasidae (Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea). Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experimental Station Technical Bulletin 165: 1-70
Common, I.F.B. 1990. Moths of Australia. Carlton : Melbourne University Press vi+535 pp., 32 pls
Edwards, E.D. 1996. Blastobasidae. p. 100 in Nielsen, E.S., Edwards, E.D. & Rangsi, T.V. (eds). Checklist of the Lepidoptera of Australia. Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera. Collingwood : CSIRO Publishing Vol. 4 xiv 529 pp. & CD-ROM
Meyrick, E. 1902. Descriptions of new species of Lepidoptera (Oecophoridae). Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 26: 133-174
Turner, A.J. 1947. Contributions to our knowledge of Australian Microlepidoptera. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland 57: 65-74