CALOSCHEMIA . Von Dr. M. Hering. 
123 
6. Family: Pterothysanidae. 
The only non-Ethiopian species known from this deviating group of Heterocera having been appended 
between the Arctiidae in their furthest sense and the Lymantriidae (Vol. X, p. 277), it had been intended in 
this volume (p. 61) to do the same with the Ethiopian species of the Pterothysanidae. On their exhaustive 
examination, however, the author thought it to be more correct, if they should not be ranged among the 
Lymantriidae, to separate them from the Arctiidae and to deal with them as an independent family. Above 
all it was K. Jordan's thorough revision of the genus Otroeda having been undertaken in the meantime, which 
caused this genus that formerly seemed to form the transition to the Pterothysamis, to be better ranged among 
the genuine Lymantriidae, for which reason it is placed as the 20th genus between Ogoa and Hyaloperina 
in the following treatise on this family. The systematic position of the Pterothysanidae is hereby not altered, 
since in most of the treatises they were inserted between the Nyctemtrinae and the Lymantriidae, which is 
also adhered to in this work. 
The Ethiopian Pterothysanidae differ rather much from the Asiatic typical genus Pterothysanus which 
is entirely absent in Africa. There is not any of the 8 Ethiopian genera that shows the characteristics which 
were mentioned in Vol. X as being the most conspicuous of the genus Pterothy sanus, i. e. the long stiff bristles 
being scattered all over the surface of the wings and being vertically or obliqixely erected in the live insect. 
This peculiarity has nowhere been found in a similar way in the whole lepidopteral kingdom, and it is accom¬ 
panied by the remarkable formation of the fringe at the margin of the hindwing in Pterothysanus laticilia, 
which is likewise unparalleled and which cannot be compared with the slight rudiments of small beards and 
pencils at the anal margins of other lepidoptera, nor with the fringes being longer than the width of the wings 
in numerous Tineids which are of quite a different structure and function. 
A similar formation of hair neither occurs anywhere except in the family of the Pterothysanidae, 
and even in the whole family of Lymantriidae we are unable to discover anything analogous. We have several 
times mentioned the somewhat creased-looking thoracal tufts of the Ewproctis and of allied genera, and shall 
revert to their biological functions in the preface to the Ethiopian Lymantriidae (cf. p. 128). These formations, 
however, are in most of the cases to be regarded as insignificant modifications of the dorsal tufts being of very 
frequent occurrence in the Heterocera ; though they are sometimes extended over the hind-margin of the forewing, 
yet they do not assume a shape similar to Pterothysanus in any of the Lymantriidae known. 
As to the larvae of the Pterothysanidae, we are sorry to say that nothing has become known to us. 
(Seitz.) 
Pterothy sail i dae. 
The Pterothysanidae being otherwise structurally rather consistent with the Lymantriidae only lack 
the detaining bristle of the hindwing, the basal thickening of which at the margin of the wing is distinctly 
present. Certain genera, such as Opoboa and Pirgula form the direct transitions to quite similar genera of the 
Lymantriidae. Jordan places these lepidoptera to the Callidulidae. - 
1. Genus: Caloschemia Mab. 
Forewing without an accoressy cell, with 12 veins, antennae not pectinate. 
C. monilifera Mab. (= pulchra Btlr.) (19 b). Body white, with black and orange spots, wings w r hite monilifera. 
with blackish ring-shaped or macular markings and orange-yellow marginal spots, at the costal margin of the 
forewing 5 blackish, in front red spots. Madagascar. 
