Study methods of Nepticulidae: micro-mounts of genitalia structures

In the studies on Lepidoptera, in particular Nepticulidae, description of external characters is often insufficientand mounts of genitalia have to be prepared. Nepticulidae species diagnostics most often relieson the characters of male (sometimes on the characters of female) genitalia (Fig. 2), which compared withother morphological structures are distinguished by high specificity (Puplesis & Robinson, 2000; Puplesis& Diškus, 2003). Reliable species identification and descriptions of Nepticulidae are impossible without theexamination of genital structures (Diškus & Stonis, 2012). It was noticed that the male genitalia charactersof Nepticulidae vary little and specific at the level of both species or higher taxonomic rank (Šimkevičiūtėet al., 2010; Navickaitė et al., 2011; Stonis et al., 2012b). The shape of valva, transtilla, vinculum, uncus, gnathos,phallus (especially including cornuti on vesica) are essential diagnostic characters of Nepticulidaespecies.