Publ. 18. IV. 1916. PREPONA. By H. FruustTorrer. 553 
Then follows Colombia with 10, the Amazon district and Central America with 9 species each. Paraguay has 
5 or 6, and the Antilles only 3 or 4 species. 
On the whole we are already acquainted with the Prepona-species, although enormous districts, espe- 
cially those of the affluents of the Amazon River and some Brazilian Provinces and especially the Antilles, 
are still to be explored. The number of the local races being still hidden in these regions, however, will probably 
increase yet considerably in the next decades, when the geographical and commercial opening up of these regions 
will have made further progress. 
All the Prepona bear hair-tufts on the hindwings, the colour of which varies according to the group 
of species. By this hair-tuft the genus differs from the Indo-Australian Charaxes. In the frequent blue species 
the hair-tufts are parallel to the surface of the wings, in some species, especially the variegated ones, however, 
they are raised steep and shaggy, as in P. laértes, the Agrias. GODMAN and SALVIN make use of the colour of 
the sexual tufts as a mark of separation for the groups of species. When considering only the Central Ameri- 
can species, this separation is also easily carried out. In some Brazilian species, howéver, we meet already 
within the species itself forms with grey, yellowish and black hair-tufts. 
But on the whole, the examination of the easily attainable species resulted in the fact that the two 
groups of species separated by GopMAN and SALvIN by reason of the colouring of the scent-tufts, are also ana- 
tomically sharply separated. Thus an insignificant mark being in other genera systematically useless in every 
instance, offers in the Prepona a precious hint for the great anatomical difference of the sexual organs. On 
the comparative examination of the clasping-organs, the surprising result arrived at was that the species with 
black hairtufts, in spite of their extremely similar scheme of markings and the homogeneousness of the colou- 
ring on the upper surface, exhibit considerable differences in the structure of the sexual organs. But the above 
more variegated species of the genera bearing yellow hair-tufts, are so very divergent in their colours that they 
have so far been distributed upon two genera, and are so congruent in the structure of the sexual organs that 
we must, as it seems, attach a specific importance to quite insignificant marks, such as the changes of the 
periphery of the valve, in order to harmonize the specific difference which is so conspicuously manifested in the 
exterior, also with that of the sexual organs. As for instance, the structure of the species hitherto circu- 
lated as Agrias sardanapilus and claudia is hardly to be distinguished from that of the Prepona laértes and 
omphale. We may, therefore, suppose that the darker and more plainly marked species of the Prepona demo- 
phon-group are already consolidated, while the variegated species of the Prepona laértes-series are still in full 
evolution. According to what has been said so far, it is not to be wondered at, if it turns out that the species 
bearing likewise yellow tufts and having hitherto been comprised by the name of Agrias, belong to the Prepona 
laértes-group. Dr. Schatz once mentioned the entire uniformity of the veins in ,,Agrias** and in Prepona. The 
examination of the clasping-organs having resulted in their analogy with Prepona, the name of ,,Agrias‘‘, was 
in future to be degraded to the denomination of a group of variegated Prepona, unless we attribute more im- 
portance to the more slender form of the larvae of the Agrias. 
We, therefore, have to distinguish anatomically: 
A. Archaeoprepona. Uncus with a chitinous, generally laminiform, spineless, ventral appendage. Type: A. demo- 
phon L. 
B. Prepona (Agrias). Uncus with a peculiar, spined ventral appendage resembling the flower-heads of the specics 
of plants Phyteuma. Type: P. laértes Hbn. 
The shape of the valves and the uncommonly strong and long penis show an analogy to the A paturidi, 
but this is again restricted by the short saccus. 
According to the colouring of the antennae, there are also two groups of forms to be distinguished: 
A. Antennae red: Anaeomorpha. 
B. Antennae black: Prepon. 
A. Group of Species Anaeomorpha (Rornscuity, Nov. Zool. 1896 t. 13 f 1). 
Veins like in Prepona, the first subcostal veins free, not united as is Anaea. 
P. splendida Rothsch. (103 e) from the Rio Cachyaco, resembles beneath a Prepona meander (111 c¢) splendida. 
with a lighter basal half and a dark-brown distal zone separated by a black line. Costal as far as near the 
wing-centre white; above deviating from all the Prepona by the cell of the forewing being suffused with blue, 
the magnificent longitudinal band traversing also the cell of the hindwing. The forewing is characterized 
by three blue transcellular maculae. Habitat Peru. 
V 70 
