FAMILY DESCRIPTION
The Saturniidae ('Emperor Moths' or 'Giant Silk Moths') are a family of medium to very large moths with wingspans of up to 12 cm or more and robust, usually hairy, bodies and broad wings. The largest moths of all are found in this family, which is a popular one with collectors due to their large size, often bright coloration and their spectacular and easily-reared larvae. There are about 1300 described species worldwide, with the largest number being found in the New World Tropics (Scoble 1992). The family is divided into seven subfamilies, (of which four are found in Belize). The large colour identification guide ('Saturniidae Mundi') by d'Abrera (1995) makes identification of world species in the subfamilies Arsenurinae and Ceratocampinae relatively straightforward; further volumes planned by d'Abrera will cover the remaining subfamilies. At present the large, expensive, outdated and out-of-print Seitz (1925) is the only guide to identification of most world Saturniidae, although the works by Lemaire (1978, 1980 and 1988) cover large parts of this family.

Meerman (1999) lists 52 species of Saturniidae from Belize in his comprehensive catalogue of species found in Belize to date. With his kind permission I list all of these species here (7 Arsenurinae, 18 Ceratocampinae, 22 Hemileucinae and 5 Saturniinae), as well as four species found by myself which are not in his list.

SUBFAMILIES present in Belize: (click on a link to go to the species list for that subfamily)


ARSENURINAE
CERATOCAMPINAE
HEMILEUCINAE
SATURNIINAE