Common Names: Asian gypsy moth (English), erdei gyapjaslepke (Hungarian), gubar (Romanian), gypsy moth (English), lagarta peluda (Spanish), limantria (Italian), løVstraesnonne (Danish), maimai-ga (Japanese), mniska vel'kohlava (Slovak), Schwammspinner (German), spongieuse (French)

The Lymantria dispar complex has had a checkered taxonomic history, reviewed in Schintlmeister (2004). Pogue and Schaefer's recent taxonomic review of economically important Lymantria species differs from Schintlmeister (2004) in a number of important respects, particularly with respect to the L. dispar complex. While Schintlmeister recognises only three species in this species complex, Pogue and Schaefer recognise five species.

• Schintlmeister synonymised L. dispar hokkaidoensis Goldschmidt (specimens from the Japanese island of Hokkaido) with L. dispar dispar Linnaeus, but Pogue and Schaefer treat the former taxon as a separate species, L. umbrosa (Butler).
• Schintlmeister sank the taxon L. umbrosa (Butler) into synonymy with L. dispar japonica but Pogue and Schaefer treat this taxon as a separate species, L. umbrosa (Butler). Pogue and Schaefer retain the subspecies L. dispar japonica for Japanese L. dispar other that those from Hokkaido.
• Schintlmeister treated the taxon L. albescens (Hori & Uemo) as comprising three subspecies, L. a. albescens (Hori & Uemo), L. a. tsushimensis Inoue and L. a. postalba Inoue, whereas Pogue and Schaefer do not recognise subspecies within L. albescens but treat L. postalba Inoue as a separate species.
• Both studies recognize L. obfuscata as a separate species.

Many additional species of Lymantria are considered by Pogue and Schaefer to be potential invasive species. In total they treat 32 species, including 2 new species. While some species are easily diagnosed from wing maculation patterning, most species are more difficult to diagnose and dissection of the genitalia of adult males is required. Not all species are unambiguously diagnosable in the adult stage, as some species (e.g. L. umbrosa) are diagnosed on the basis of larval morphology. However, larval morphology is incompletely known and generally cannot be used for unambiguous species diagnosis, particularly for early instar larvae. It should be noted that the life stage of Lymantria species that is most commonly encountered by quarantine inspection services is the egg stage. However, eggs do not possess sufficient morphological characters to offer up any hope of being able to diagnose species. Thus there is a urgent need for a method for diagnosing Lymantria species that will work for eggs, and indeed for any life stage. DNA based methods are the logical choice. A preliminary study by Ball and Armstrong (2006) has demonstrated the efficacy of DNA barcoding for diagnosis of Lymantria species. I have begun research to extend this proof of concept to all Lymantria and thus to develop a truly universal diagnostic system for this economically important genus.