Copromorphoidea, the "fruitworm moths" is a
superfamily of
insects in the
lepidopteran order. These moths are small to medium-sized (10–50 mm. in wingspan) and are broad-winged bearing some resemblance to the superfamilies
Tortricoidea and
Immoidea. The antennae are often "pectinate" especially in males, and many species of these well
camouflaged moths bear raised tufts of
scales on the wings and a specialised fringe of scales at the base of the hindwing sometimes in females only; there are a number of other structural characteristics (Common, 1990; Dugdale et al., 1999) . The position of this superfamily is not certain, but it has been placed in the natural group of "Apoditrysia"
[1]"Obtectomera" (Minet, 1991), rather than with the superfamilies
Alucitoidea or
Epermenioidea within which it has sometimes previously been placed, on the grounds that shared
larval and
pupal characteristics of these groups have probably evolved independently. It has been suggested that the division into two families should be abandoned (e.g. Holloway et al., 2001).
