Gunnar Brehm and collaborators have published the first systematic inventory of 330 species of tiger and lichen moths (subfamily Arctiinae, family Erebidae) from the Ecuadorian Chocó. They combined field sampling, DNA barcoding, and phylogenetic analyses to assess species diversity, taxonomic knowledge, and evolutionary relationships. Their results show that only approximately 45% of the species could be confidently matched to previously described taxa. This study represents an important advance in our understanding of moth diversity, not only in the Ecuadorian Chocó but also across Neotropical forests.
Figure: Example of Arctiinae that according to the authors might require taxonomic revision due to their results on phylogenetic relationships.