NORTH AMERICAN ACROLOPHIDAE — ^HASBROUCK 625 



This subspecies has a synonym in flavicomus of which Busck's 

 original description is as follows: 



Acrolophus flavicomus — Labial palpi curved, ascending, short, hardly reaching 

 vertex; loosely tufted on first joint and in less degree on second and third joint; 

 light ochreous; terminal joint dark brown above. Head and thorax ochreous 

 brown. Forewings light, ochreous brown with two dark ill-defined streaks, 

 forming an irregular cross; one from the middle of dorsum to costa just before 

 apex; the other from tornus to basal fourth of costa; the latter is often more or 

 less broken up and is easily partly lost in rubbed specimens. Still more easily 

 lost and in fact only preserved in perfect specimens is a series of five undulating 

 lines of white raised scales across the wing; on the fold in the central one of these 

 white lines is an ill-defined black dot and the outer crossline contains two or three 

 small patches of black scales before the terminal edge. Cilia light ochreous. 

 Hindwings dark fuscous. Abdomen dark fuscous. Legs ochreous fuscous with 

 faintly annulated tarsal joints. 



Alar expanse, 19 mm. 



Habitat — Laguna Beach, Southern California. C. F. Baker, coll. U.S. Nat. 

 Mus. Type, No. 14337. 



This species belongs to the group, described under the generic name Eulepiste 

 Wlsm. and comes closest to cressoni Wlsm. and maculifer Wlsm., but is amply 

 distinguished by the ornamentation. The various genera, erected in the family 

 Acrolophidae on the secondary sexual characters of the labial palpi can not be 

 maintained. 



Remarks. — The holotype c?, from Orange Co., Cahf., was examined 

 at the U.S. National Museum where Dr. Clarke kindly removed its 

 genitalia for me. It appears to be no more than a minor intra- 

 specific variation of occidens from adjacent San Diego Co. The 

 holotype has indications of two rings of scales on each antennal 

 segment and in this respect approaches laticapitanus. Hence, jlavi- 

 comus may be considered a partial intergrade between occidens and 

 Laticapitanus ^vith genitaha similar to both, color pattern like the 

 former, and antennae hke the latter. Two cf paratypes, also col- 

 lected by Baker at Laguna Beach, were borrowed from the U.S. 

 National Museum for fm-ther examination. These also confirmed 

 the sinking of flavicomus as a synonym of occidens. Contrary to 

 Busck's comment, flamcomus does not belong to the Eulepiste group, 

 for it is not at all closely related to Walsingham's species, cressoni 

 and maculifer. 



30c. Acrolophus laticapitanus occidens form leopardus Busck, new 



combination 



Figure 147 



Acrolophus leopardus Busck, 1910, Proc. Ent. Soc. Washington, vol. 11, no. 4, 

 pp. 186-187, Jan.— Barnes & McDunnough, 1917, Check List Lep. Bor. 

 Amer., p. 191, no. 8156. — McDunnough, 1939, Check List Lep. Can. & 

 U.S. Amer., p. 103, no. 9542. 



