EUTELIANAE. General Topics. By A. Seitz. 
351 
Subfamily Eutelianae. 
From the subfamily of the Eutelianae about 200 forms have hitherto been named. Of these, however, 
such a great number originate from newly explored districts of New Guinea, which is so plentifully supplied 
with lepidoptera, that we may readily expect this number to increase to beyond 300, if we consider how little 
is known of this gigantic island. 30 species alone have already been ascertained in New Guinea, and more 
than a dozen other species are known partly from the neighbouring islands, such as Borneo, partly they were 
discovered to the north of New Guinea (Philippines) and almost at the same time to the south (North Australia), 
so that it is presumably only accidental if they have not yet been ascertained in New Guinea itself. Such a 
conglomeration of an otherwise widely distributed group of insects is certainly a most curious faunistic phe¬ 
nomenon. 
The “Macrolepidoptera" which mainly follow Hampson's classic work on the Noctuae frequently deviate 
from Hampson’s system of order, because certain divisions in previous volumes of our work were compiled 
earlier than by Hampson (the Acronictinae appeared in Vol. 3 in May 1909, in the Catal. Lepid. Phalaenae 
only later in that year), which is partly due to a different point of view regarding the composition of these 
subfamilies. 
On the whole, the position assigned to the Eutelianae is of no special practical importance. The sub¬ 
family is rather homogeneous being composed of but few genera so distinctly characterized that there is hardly 
any doubt left. 
The most important morphological peculiarities of the Eutelianae have already been mentioned in 
Vol. 1, p. 287 and Vol. 15, p. 167 to which we refer our readers. The most conspicuous feature is the robust 
structure of the body, especially the stout head and the mostly strongly developed palpi. Concerning the 
development of hair-tufts, the subfamily exhibits nearly all the modifications possible, from an entirely smooth 
thoracal and abdominal dorsum to queer hairy calottes which, in the $ of the African Pacidara venustissima 
Wkr., cover almost the whole head and can be erected into towering hair-crests several millimetres high. Be¬ 
sides we meet with trouser-like curls, sometimes on all the legs, and pencils or flocks may project from the 
joints of the limbs, from the junctures of the abdominal segments, or at the abdominal end. These formations 
may have induced the older systematically working lepidopterologists to join the subfamily to the Cucullianae 
(Lederer), from where they were either transferred to the Heliothidae or to the Oraesia and Calpe which are 
nowadays reckoned among the Noctuinae quadrifinae. In their habitus they are decidedly most similar to the 
just as big-headed Stictopterinae to which, in our opinion, they also form a natural transition. 
In Europe only 1 species (adulatrix) has a more extensive range, while another species (adoratrix) is 
found yet on the Caspian Sea, in the southernmost part of Russia (the Crimea), though it may be rather re¬ 
garded as an immigrant from the Transuralian steppe than as a typical Russian inhabitant; besides only about 
half a dozen of the approximately 170 Eutelianae known occur in the palaearctic region. America harbours 
about 50 species that are thus far known, while about as many are enumerated in Vol. 15 from Africa, and 
60—70 are apportioned to the gigantic Indo-Australian region where, as mentioned above. New Guinea is 
the prominent centre of the range. 
Owing to the great homogeneity in the structure, the habits may be expected to be similarly homo¬ 
geneous. The best known European species, Eut. adulatrix , is a nocturnal insect flying to the lantern even 
late at night, yet it is so shy in the daytime that it quickly flies off when being suddenly approached. If 
they propagate in masses, as it may sometimes occur with an Ethiopian species, single specimens, mostly 33, 
also keep swarming about in the hot sunshine. Otherwise the Eutelia rest on poles and trunks in a very charac¬ 
teristic pose, with their heads down, their forewings stretched out and closely pressed against the bark, while 
the abdomen is sometimes erected over the dorsum. In this attitude they differ from the Thyrididae from 
the genus Dysodia , which often resemble them in the shape of their wings; this resemblance is also expressed 
nomenclaturally by the denomination of an (American) Eutelian genus as “ Thyriodes” Gn. 
The larvae do not resemble those of the Plusiinae (Pliytometrinae ) to which the lepidoptera have 
sometimes been joined. They are sometimes smooth, but they may also exhibit little tubercles or points across 
the dorsum, studded with one or several small bristles. They are mostly green, often very beautifully marked. 
Concerning their food-plants, they keep rather, exclusively — as far as it is known — to the different Anacar- 
diineae; their larvae are known from the wig-tree (Cotinus coccygria) and from the ink-tree (Semeearpus ana- 
cardium); the food-plant of the European Eutelia adulatrix is also reported to be the pistacia (Pistacia vera). 
The larvae of tropical species, hardly any of which are yet known, will therefore be best looked for on the mango- 
trees in every tropical garden, and the fact that the imagines of many Eutelia- species are so often found on 
