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 a representative of only one - the Saturniinae - is allegedly found in Jamaica).
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the large, expensive, outdated and out-of-print Seitz (1925)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.
SUBFAMILY DESCRIPTION
The Subfamily SATURNIINAE are a largely
old world tropical family and are probably an unnatural grouping made up
of unrelated species lumped together on the basis of external similarity
of appearance rather than degree of descent from a common ancestor.
This subfamily contains most of the really large
Saturniids.
JAMAICAN SPECIES
I catalogue a single species allegedly taken in Jamaica. Please click on
the underlined species name to go to a colour
illustration of the adult and brief information on
the species.
The genus Samia