Bombycoidea

Bombycoidea is a superfamily of moths, including the silk moths, giant silk moths, sphinx moths, saturniids, and relatives. The superfamily Lasiocampoidea is a close relative and was historically sometimes merged in this group. After many years of debate and shifting taxonomies, the most recent classifications treat the superfamily as containing 10 constituent families.^[4]

Bombycoidea
Death's-head hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Clade:	Eulepidoptera
Clade:	Ditrysia
Clade:	Apoditrysia
Clade:	Obtectomera
Clade:	Macroheterocera
Superfamily:	Bombycoidea Gravenhorst, 1843[1][2]
Families
See text
Diversity
>3,500 species
Synonyms
Bombyciformia Schrank, 1802[3] Sphingoidea Gravenhorst, 1843[1]

Characteristics

Bombycoid larvae often exhibit horns.^[5] In the adult stage they are typically large, and include the largest moths in the world.

Families

Bombycoidea includes the following families:

• Anthelidae
• Apatelodidae
• Bombycidae
• Brahmaeidae (syn. Lemoniidae)
• Carthaeidae
• Endromidae (syn. Mirinidae)
• Eupterotidae
• Phiditiidae
• Saturniidae
• Sphingidae