300 NOVITATES Z00LOOICA£ XXVI. 1919. 



NOTES ON THE SPECIES. 



N.B. — Though possibly incorrect from a strict morphological point of 

 view, larvae are described as possessing 13 segments, the head being the first. 



DIVISION I.— ARISTOLOCHIA PAPILIOS. 



Aeneas Group. 



P. triopas. 



Apparently a rare species in Para. 



Two male butterflies only in the Utinga district : one at flowers on 

 September 1st, 1914 ; the second, light brown in ground-colour, caught un- 

 wittingly. Early stages undiscovered. 



The next eight species, though four are classed in the Aeneas group and 

 four in the Lysander, show so many features in common that it seems best to 

 begin by describing these, and then proceed to state wherein they differ as species 

 under their specific headings. 



As young larvae they all commence with a deep maroon colour, which 

 generally clarifies and becomes rosier with advancing growth. In early days, 

 and especially before moulting, even in the fourth instar, the skin appears taut 

 and somewhat glossy. The specific markings, moreover, of the adult caterpillar, 

 if they are anticipated at all, are in most cases vague and ill-defined. 



For illustrations of this, compare the figures of the young of aeneas, anchises, 

 vertumnus, and neophilus on Plate III with their adult forms on Plate 11. 



The head, legs, and hard or plated portions are in all cases black and glossy. 

 Prom the earliest days, in common with all other PapUio larvae, they can, when 

 disturbed, emit a pungent odour by tlirowing out a couple of snail-like yellow 

 horns behind the head. 



The pointed, fleshy tubercles, with which all these larvae are so prominently 

 clothed, vary slightly in thickness and altitude as well as in colour in the different 

 species, but very little in position. Indeed, a careful comparison of all the 

 figures relating to these eight species — I can say nothing about triopas, never 

 having seen either larva or pupa — reveals so many details in common between 

 them that, judging of their classification simply from early stages, I confess to 

 serious misgivings about the validity of dividing them up into two groups at 

 all. In representatives of both, for example, there are a pair of dark lunular 

 marks on the back of aU the middle segments supporting the medio-dorsal line ; 

 in both again, when some of the dorsal tubercles are maroon or dark-coloured, 

 they tend to be ochreous and light on segments 3, 8, 11, and 13, being invariably 

 so in some species, inconstant in others. Compare anchises with all four of the 

 Lysander group on Plate II. In aeneas the dorsal tubercles are light on 4 and 7 

 and sometimes 12 in addition to those above, and in sesosti'is they are only light 

 on 8 and 11, but the same tendency is plainly discernible. Finally, the oblique 

 yellow side-stripe from the dorsal tubercle on segment 8 to the base of segment 6, 

 which constitutes so marked a feature in aglaope, lysander, and neophilns, is 

 equally characteristic of aeneas ; while with anchises and echemon, over which 

 I have puzzled in vain to determine any constant and reliable differences, the 

 position of this oblique stripe, though not defined, is always the lightest part 

 of the lateral area. 



