URANIA. By M. Gaede. 
83U 
do; this fact is confirmed by the peaceful way they flutter side by side on their migration, as well as by the 
excellent preservation of their most delicate wings, which has been ascertained on the captured specimens. 
To capture these lepidoptera is not easy at all. They generally fly rather high, as long as they are near 
trees; it is therefore necessary to wait in open spaces in the forest or in prairies, where they fly lower down 
and may come within reach of the net (Puppy), though even then their zigzag flight makes it rather difficult 
to capture them. Single troups sometimes gather at places where water is running through rocky gorges and 
moistens the stone-walls, from which the insects greedily drink water, with their heads downwards and their 
wings spread out, too. 
The behaviour of the Sematurinae is quite different from that of the Urania. They appear to be more 
nocturnal; the Sematura often come to the light, whereas the Goronidia and Homodiana are rarely seen near 
the lantern. Nor are they frequently beaten out from bushes or down from treetrunks in the daytime, but 
they often appear just for a few moments on the tops of mountains, whereupon they generally disappear again 
very quickly. 
As the imagines of the Urania , the larvae also exhibit distinct relations with the Chrysiridia and the 
Alcidis. The young larvae, as far as they are known, have black and white transverse stripes with red head 
and pectoral legs, the prolegs and claspers of U. leilus being whitish, the cervical shield spotted reddish. The 
most peculiar feature, however, is exhibited by clubbed hairs on the foremost and hindermost segments. The 
larva of Goronidia is studded with shorter fleshy thorns, so that (according to Fassl) it resembles the larva of 
a butterfly from the genus Anaea, but otherwise shows the exterior of Noctuid larvae. The larvae of Coron. 
echenais were found on a low shrub with lanceolate leaves, partly hidden on trunks or in the moss. 
The pupae are rounded in front, the head is slightly set off and the cremaster pointed; those of Urania 
leilus are light greyish fawn, with blackish spots and veins, those of Goronidia achenais are said to be similar 
to those of Ennomos alniaria. 
1. GeilUS: lirailia (Uranidia Ww., Cydimon Balm., Thaliura Dune., Dasycephalus Swns.) 
The genus is composed of 8 rather similar species all of which exhibit greenish golden sparkling metallic 
transverse stripes through both wings crossing the deep velvety black ground. They are distributed over the 
whole northern part of South America, whilst they disappear in the south, so that they apparently do not pass 
beyond the frontiers of Chile and Argentina. In the north they do not reach the United States, but cross a 
great part of Mexico and even show their most beautiful forms in the West Indies (Cuba, Jamaica). They are 
remarkable for the great individual variation of the number and course of the green transverse bands which 
are sometimes even unsymmetrically arranged to the right and left. — The forewings are mostly regularly 
triangular, with a pointed apex, straight inner-margin and, in the rf, a very slightly concave distal margin. 
As in Chrysiridia, 3 subcostal branches arise from the upper wall of the very short cell which does not even 
attain % of the length of the wing, but is broad behind. The costal system, however, differs from that of 
Chrysiridia in the 2nd and 3rd subcostal branches not anastomosing here, as they do in Chrysiridia where they 
form an enormously elongated (nearly 2 cm long) areola. The hindwing is extended on the 1st median branch 
into a long tail, with long fringe and an open discal cell. Type: leilus L. 
leilus. U, leilus L. (= leilaria Hbn., surinamensis Swns.) (138 a). The forewing shows 4 separated green lines, 
a fifth being fused with the base and 1 or 2 with the upper end of the main band. On the hindwing 2 feeble 
bluish-green stripes are parallel to the inner margin. The distal margin in broad green in extreme specimens, 
with a blue gloss at the apex, but mostly indented black from the direction of the margin in a variable intensity. 
The anal end, the tail, and the whole fringes are white. — The distal margin of the hindwing beneath is narrowly 
ampMclus. white also in normal specimens. The name: amphiclus Bsd. (138 a) refers to transitory specimens in which the 
distal margin of the hindwing is crossed by black stripes, the vein running through the tail is more or less 
broad black. 70 mm. Central America to Peru, Brazil. — The larva is extremely variable. All the young larvae 
are light bone-coloured, striped zebra - lika by dark transverse bands, but the old larva may turn so dark 
violettish-brown that the black transverse stripes are scarcely noticeable. Moreover, the ground-colour may 
also be a light or pinkish yellowish-brown; the transverse belts may be merely fine lines or also broken up into 
transverse rows of dots. Besides very large white, black-edged stigmatal spots may occur. But invariably 
the adult larva shows a red-brown head and a dark-spotted face. The clubs of the hairs on the pectoral and 
anal segments exhibit white tips. The larva lives on species of Onephalea, a creeper; it feeds for about 3 weeks 
and then changes into a yellowish or greyish brown pupa with an irregularly dotted and spotted dorsum and 
strongly black-veined wing-cases. It lies in a widely meshed thin web surrounding it like a fine tulle. After 
about 16 days the imago appears, developing at night. It flies briskly in the daytime, playing around the twigs 
of trees, and likes to come to stones sprinkled with water. It always settles on hanging leaves and on rocks 
