422 
ANAXITA. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
muscosa. 
cdaphus. 
postflavida. 
lehmanni. 
bauds. 
adela. 
A. muscosa Bothsch. (48 g). Dark brown, also sepia-coloured, the forewing finely watered with a 
darker colour, before the marginal area darker than in the marginal area and basal half. Hindwing hyaline, 
faintly tinged yellowish. Body uni-coloured dark brown. Peru. 
A. edaphus Dyar resembles muscosa, but it is larger (80 mm). Head, thorax above and the forewing 
sepia-brown, but the marginal area darker. Abdomen and hindwing yellow, the latter with a sepia-brown 
costal and apical part. Mexico, discovered by Roberto Muller in Tehuacan. 
A. postflavida Bothsch. Wings almost entirely coloured as in the two preceding, but the abdominal 
dorsum behind sulphur-coloured, the 4 last rings edged with black and partly with a blackish partition-line 
in the centre, like in certain Opharus. From Mt. Tolima, discovered by Fassl. Colombia. 
A. lehmanni Bothsch. (48 g). Head and body blackish-brown, forewing dark chestnut-brown, towards 
the margin darker. Hindwing whitish. Colombia. 
A. baucis Dalm. (= bombycina Perty) is slightly larger than the following species; head and thorax 
purple red; antennae and spots on the tegulae black, patagia black with a white, anteriorly angular stripe. 
Abdomen black with some purple at the base and a purple anal part and an anteriorly white sublateral stripe. 
Forewing blackish-brown with a white subcostal stripe extending to the centre, where it is narrowed, whilst 
on the under surface of the wing this stripe is set off by purple. Fringes with white tips. Hindwing uni-coloured 
blackish-brown. Cuba, Para and Bolivia. 
A. adela Schs. (47 g). Head above orange, body black, thorax marked orange and purple, abdomen 
with a hemochrome, black-marked end.* Before the distal margin of both wings a band extends, composed 
of oval, bone-white spots; by similar spots also the proximal part of the forewing is intermixed, but the forewing 
is partly yellow. From Castro in the Brazilian State of Parana. 
92. Genus: Anaxita Wkr. 
With this genus we conclude the very polytypical group of the Phegopterinae although it was hitherto 
reckoned among the ,,Hypsids“ to which, in fact, it forms a transition. It not only approximates the following 
group of the Pericopinae (the Hypsinae of America), by the course of the veins on the hindwing, but there are 
such remarkable parallels to the South Asiatic Hypsinae, that we cannot think of mere convergencies. In the 
distal halves of the wings, particularly of the forewings, there occurs such a strange form of radiary rays as 
we find it almost nowhere in the whole lepidopteral range offering such an enormous variety of markings. This 
is exhibited in Anax. decorata, constricta, drucei, whilst nearly all the other Anaxita show at least traces of it. 
The only corresponding character we find far off in South Asia, in the genera closely allied to the genus Hypsa : 
Anagnia, Aganopis, Euplocia (Vol. X, t. 27), particularly in the $ of Aganopis orbicularis Wkr. (Vol. X, t. 27 a), 
less distinctly also in several of its allies. And here we must consider that the forms of the two groups have 
about the same biological position in their different faunae. In both groups we notice, moreover, a certain 
uniformity of the structure of the body. The peculiarly cylindrical, long $ abdomen being stout as far as the 
end, and exhibiting in the frequently glaring ground-colour a rather genuine Arctoid dorsal marking in the 
shape of small black spots or stripes, is likewise common to both, as well as the exterior shape of the palpi 
projecting beyond the head in front like two parallel, long awls. 
Of these Anaxita about a dozen of forms are known to-day, nearly all of which seem to inhabit the 
alpine districts and are distributed from Mexico to the south as far as Peru and Bolivia. They presumably 
only fly in day-time on being chased up, though Mr. Georg Brueckner from Guatemala reports them to be 
distinctly inclined to forming colonies*). The larvae of the Guatemala-form were found by Brueckner in 
a very bare and rocky Alpine region, at an altitude of 10 600 ft., on a mountain-herb with small leaves, called 
,,Motoze“. The larvae look very much like our a-species, but the hairing is not so long as for instance 
in the larvae of A. caja. Brueckner found these larvae in a very rugged district, the soil being frozen and covered 
with ice. He states the colour of these larvae to be olive-brownish, a mixture of yellow and dark hair. The 
adult larva is 5 cm long, with a bright red ven+rum and silvery white stigmata; the ventral feet have outside 
a black, lustrous spot. On being disturbed, they do not roll themselves up as most of the larvae of the Arctiinae 
do; they therefore behave like the larvae of the hitherto known Hypsinae (such as Aganopis orbicularis, Asota) 
and Pericopinae (Pericopis sacrifica. Dysschema tiresias) which neither roll themselves up. Many larvae often 
proved to have been tampered with. The pupa rests in a very careless web; it is black, 18 mm long, looks as 
if polished, and, after 40 days, it yielded the imago which is very rarely met with in the open air (Brueckner). 
*) A strange coincidence is that the palearctic Arctiid Axiopoena maura (Vol. II, t. 17 g), which has a remarkable 
resemblance to some Anaxita (suprema) in the shape and colouring, exhibits the same peculiar gregarious instinct about which 
we have referred in Vol. II, p. 97. 
