URANIIDAE. General Topics by Dr. A. Seitz 
387 
14. Family: Uraniidae. 
In Vol. II (p. 275) we have put down the most essential general remarks on this very heterogeneous 
family. This character of a collective group has induced many authors to divide it, yet up to this day we are 
without any elaboration on this polymorphous family. Numbered amongst them are the most magnificent and 
most specialised lepidoptera of the globe, besides very small. Geometrid-like lepidoptera of microlepidopteral 
sizes, with an expanse of but 1 cm. Moreover, the various Uraniid genera exhibit such external and super¬ 
ficial resemblances, that their characters are plainly disclosed as occasional convergencies. In Vol. II we have 
spoken of 3 main sections being opposed to each other as Uraniinae, Microniinae, and Epipleminae. Even these 
subfamilies, however, are not homogeneous, and the Uraniinae as well as the Epipleminae are again split into 
very dissimilarly shaped groups of genera . Neither does the geographical range throw any light upon the family, 
but on the contrary makes it still more complicated, since those genera being most similar to each other seem 
to be without any faunistic connection. 
Thus it is only the fact of the larvae having 16 feet and the very remarkable resemblance in the scheme 
of the veins that may be mentioned as the only momenta by which the different subfamilies are united to each 
other. In these loose unions we may insert other groups ad lib., and thus Hampson places the Apoprogenes 
hesperistis (pi. 1 a) between the two families into which he splits the Uraniidae : Sematuridae and Uraniidae , 
and he ranges all these 3 before the Psychidae and behind the C eratocampulae (which he names Syssphingidae). 
In doing so he renounces every visible relation, just like Rebel who in his list of lepidoptera places the Uraniidae 
before the Epicopiidae. With the latter which are nothing but mimetically transformed Clialcosiinac and thus 
to be joined with the Zygaenidae, the Uraniidae have nothing in common but a certain, merely external 
Papi£io-resemblance of just a few species. This adaptation is, in morphological and biological respects, of 
quite a different import: in the Epicopeia it is true mimicry with the unmistakable purpose of copying the 
shape of a protected model; in the Uraniidae it is the occasional Papilio- like modification of hyperbolic colouring, 
shape and decoration. 
We shall therefore not attempt here to substantiate the correctness of ranging the family of Uraniidae 
at this place; this can only be done when the delimitation of the Uraniidae and the position of the subfamilies 
has been cleared up. 
The total number of Uraniidae known amounts to about 730—750, according as we regard some colorial 
deviations to be distinct species or merely insignificant variations. In the Ethiopian Region only 40 of them 
occur, but among them the most beautiful representatives of the family and perhaps the finest of all lepidoptera. 
It must be stated, however, that just in this Ethiopian Region there are vast districts where the Uraniidae are 
entirely absent, and that these districts are even larger by far than the relatively small districts in which hardly 
any representatives of this family are found. It seems that the various subfamilies originate from quite different 
epochs of creation: such evidently favouring the sunshine, of a small geographical range ( Chrysiiidia , Urania) 
are opposed to original, well adapted genera with an almost universal range ( Epiplema), lacking any relations 
whatever. 
1. Subfamily: Uraniinae. 
The 9 genera composing this group being incoherently assorted resemble each other by the frequently 
Papilio- like shape of the tails of the hindwings and are divided again into the following tribes: 
