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ABSTRACT Synanthropic species live in close association with, or benefit from, humans. Despite their potential impacts to human health, little is known about the mechanisms driving synanthropic life‐history evolution, evolutionary forces shaping diet among synanthropes, or how these combined factors affect population dynamics and/or speciation. The Tineidae moth family contains several synanthropic species, including the globally distributed pest speciesTineola bissellellia, that contribute to the ~$1 billion worth of damage caused annually by keratinophagous synanthropes. Synanthropy among Tineidae is associated with a wide range of dietary strategies. While most tineids display obligate detritivory, synanthropic species are typically either facultatively or obligately keratinophagous. However, little is known about evolutionary relationships within Tineidae, hampering efforts to investigate the relationship between synanthropy and diet evolution. Here, to address this challenge, we extracted DNA from 39 tineid samples and two outgroups, including the closely relatedTineolaandTineagenera, and generated genome‐wide sequence data for thousands of ultraconserved elements (UCEs). Our phylogenetic analyses, using a concatenated maximum‐likelihood‐based approach, resulted in a well‐supported, fully resolved phylogeny that demonstrates synanthropy has evolved multiple times and is consistently associated with facultative and obligate keratinophagy. Bayesian divergence time estimation indicates Cretaceous divergence among deep‐branching tineid lineages, an ancestral origin of facultative keratinophagy, and a recent origin of the most economically important synanthropic pest,Tineola bissellellia,from within genusTinea. Taken together, our results suggest that a shift to facultative keratinophagy was a key evolutionary innovation that has fuelled the repeated evolution of synanthropic life histories among this deep‐diverging moth family. 

Skippers (Hesperiidae) form a distinct lineage of butterflies where the developmental mechanisms of color patterning have seldom been studied. Skipper wing patterns often consist of median stripes, and studies from the mid-twentieth century suggested these elements are homologous to the central symmetry system (CSS) found in nymphalid butterflies. Here we examined the expression of the signaling ligand gene WntA, known to mark the presumptive CSS patterns in nymphalids, in the silver-spotted skipper Epargyreus clarus, and found support for the homology of the CSS across 95 MY of evolutionary divergence. We generated an annotated genome for E. clarus and used RNAseq to profile gene expression along the wing proximo-distal (P-D) axis. These data suggest that the transcription factor genes lobe, u-shaped, and odd-paired are expressed in restricted P-D sections of the wing similarly to WntA, indicating potential roles in CSS patterning. In addition, developmental genes involved in wing P-D patterning in Drosophila – dachsous, fourjointed, homothorax, tiptop/teashirt, vestigial, scalloped – reveal similar expressions between Diptera and Lepidoptera on the wing P-D axis, suggesting a deep conservation of P-D patterning in insect wings. This work expands our understanding of the mechanisms shaping wing pattern evolution in butterflies