Rifseria [SEP] parent taxon
Rifseria
Rifseria is a genus of moth in the family Gelechiidae. It contains only one species, Rifseria fuscotaeniaella, which is found in North America from Manitoba and British Columbia to eastern Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and coastal California.
The wingspan 10.5–16 mm. The forewings are white, sometimes with a broad brown basal band. There are three dark patches along the costa. Adults are on wing from March to November in the southern part of the range and from June to September in the north.
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of