CYMATOPHORIDAE. General Topics by Dr. A. Seitz; HABROSYNE. By M. Gaede. 
1171 
18 . Family: Cymatophoridae. 
Since our elaboration of the Cymatophoridae of the Old World, very much has been written about their 
relationship to the other Heterocera families established since and about their relations to the genera Axia 
and Diloha, with hardly any success in solving this question. Most of the discussions on these relations result 
in the statement that the comprehension of the three groups of Cymatophoridae (sensu angust.), Epicimelia 
and Diloba maintained in our Vol. II is incorrect and therefore untenable. But Warren who opposes the Axiinae 
as a special (3rd) group to the Thyatirinae and the Palimpsestis- group, as well as my arguments (in Vol. II. 
p. 332, and in Suppl. Vol. II, p. 194) only speak of a very loose connection — if any at all — between the 
Cymatophora, Axia and Diloba, and already the remark in Vol. II that Diloba “scarcely belongs to this place" 
clearly indicates that a union with the Cymatophoridae is almost out of the question. In the meantime it has 
been recommended to establish separate families for the two groups appended to the Cymatophorid chapter 
in Vol. II: Axiidae by H. Rebel and Dilobidae by Gloss A Hannemann. If this separation as special families 
has not yet been employed in the “Macrolepidoptera”, it is because further studies may nevertheless cause 
them to be inserted in or appended to some other Heterocera family, for which reason it appears to be more 
advisable in a work of reference as the present one is to leave them at their old place until this question will 
have been ultimately decided. 
Meanwhile also the position of the genuine Cymatophoridae has been frequently treated upon again. 
The American species prove to be rather homogenous among themselves and still more connected with the 
palaearctic forms than with those of the other faunae. We find the European Thyatira batis represented by 
quite similar forms across a very great part of America, especially also in its tropical regions, and the same 
is the case with Habrosyne derasa ; and the representatives of these two genera so truly resembling the palae¬ 
arctic ones appear in America even in their largest and most beautiful forms, i. e. Thyatira mexicana and H. 
scripta which shows a wonderfully delicate colouring. Also the eastern palaearctic trimacula is represented in 
Tropical America by the wonderful Th. heurippa which, in a certain measure, connects the colouring of Thyatira 
batis with that of Habrosyne derasa. 
Many of the 250 names in Dalla Torre's “Lepidopterorum Catalogus" simply denote insignificant 
deviations or also only synonyms; frequently forms have been named, which scarcely differ from their nomen- 
clatural type, as for instance Cymatophora ab. albingensis from the typical or. And yet the transformation of 
the type into its melanism has taken place, so to speak, before our eyes; and this process seems to be in full 
swing just- now (cf. Suppl. Vol. II, p. 197). The total number of the well separable species of Cymatophoridae 
probably amounts to about 100 one third of which occur in America. 
Another species was recently established for America, showing a few remarkable characteristics of the 
Cymatophoridae, i. e. Oiozona geometrica Draudt, which was similarly to be appended to the other genera of the 
family. However, its character proved to be that of the Notodontidae, for which reason the species has been 
treated there and figured on pi. 154 b. Neither would its insertion in the Cymatophoridae have shown a con- 
nectinglink between the Notodontidae and the Cymatophoridae, so that the latter still have no definite position 
in the system. Sick, in a recent publication, refers to the resemblance of the tympanal organ to that of the 
Drepanidae. 
1. Genus: Habrosyne Hbn. 
All the important details about this genus have been mentioned already in Vol. II, p. 322. Only 2 or 3 
species occur in the American Region, thus not even as many as in the Palaearctic Region. Tvpe: derasa L. 
from Europe. 
