4 LEPIDOPTERA RHOPALOCERA 



Early stages. — The larva is cylindrical and has six rows of spines, which bear simple, stiff 

 bristles. The head has no horns or spines, but only small hairs. 



The pupa is straight, almost cylindrical, being usually but slightly more convex dorsally than 

 ventrally. The constriction separating the thorax from the abdomen is slight. There is a subdorsal 

 row of tubercles or spines on each side. The colour is generally a chalky white, the wing-veins being 

 outlined in black. The head is truncate, the angles being produced in Planema. 



The egg is higher than broad and has perpendicular ribs connected by transverse ridges. 



Systematics. — Until quite recently the Aethiopian Pardopsis punctatissima Boisduval (i833) 

 has always been considered as a true Acraeine species. It is, however, more closely related to the lower 

 Nymphalinae than to the Acraeinae, and should he placed among the Nymphalinae as a special tribe. We only 

 add the species as an Appendix to the Acraeinae in order to avoid its being altogether forgotten in the 

 Genera Insectorum. 



The remaining species here enumerated are true Acraeinae. They belong to two distinct branches, 

 the Old World branch with the genera Acraea und Planema, and the American branch represented by 

 the genus Actinole. Whereas the American branch consists of several groups of species sharply defined 

 by structural detail in both sexes, an attempt to separate the large number of species of the Eastern 

 Hemisphere into more than two genera, based on relationship, meets with great difficulties. 



The American branch has retained two ancestral characters in the row of bristles which, on the 

 hindwing, is always present on the submedian fold and frequently also on the cell-fold, and in the 

 submedian vein of the hindwing not being entirely atrophied. These characters are lost in the Old 

 World species with the exception of Acraea mirifica, in which the submedian row of bristles is very 

 distinct and the submedian vein distalty developed as in Actinote. The same species has metallic scaling 

 on the underside of the hindwing, the other Old World species not being metallic (apart from the 

 iridescence of the wing-membrane of some species), whereas metallic colouring is quite frequent among 

 the American Acraeinae. 



Distribution. — The subfamity is purely tropical, touching the Palaearctic Region in the 

 Yang-tse-kiang district of China. The bulk of the species is iEthiopian, a few species occurring in the 

 Oriental Region, one extending to the Solomon Islands. The American branch is almost entirely 

 restricted to South America, reaching southward to Buenos Aires and Rio Grande do Sul, Central 

 America having only a few species, two occurring in Mexico. The Andesian countries from Bolivia 

 northward (there are no Acraeinae in Chile) to Mexico and eastwards to the Sierra de Merida in Vene- 

 zuela are characterised by a group of bright-coloured or metallic species, which are not represented in 

 the countries east of the Andes. The paucity of Acraeinae in the Amazon Valley from Para to Iquitos and 

 in the Guianas is remarkable, no more than one species being met with in any place of this vast 

 country otherwise so rich in Lepidoptera. 



KEY TO THE GENERA 



A. The stalk of the subcostals of the for ewing from the apex of the cell. 



a. First submedian vein of hindwing (vein I c) distally fully developed 



and upper radial (vein 6) in both wings from or from near upper 



angle of cell i. Genus Actixote Hubner. 



b. First submedian vein of hindwing atrophied, or if developed 

 (A. mirifica) the upper radial distant from upper angle 

 of cell. 



