Fossil Butterflies: Memoirs of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I.Scudder, Samuel Hubbard
Science
Fossil Butterflies: Memoirs of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I.
Scudder, Samuel Hubbard
Butterflies, Fossil
In the pattern of their markings (Pl. III, fig. 3) the wings of
Thaites are rather simple. The fore wing is provided with four nearly
equidistant, nearly straight, transverse, pale stripes, depending at
about right angles from the subcostal nervure, unequal in length and
width, the third from the base situated in the middle of the wing; and
also with a submarginal curving row of moderately large, transversely
ovate spots, one in each interspace opening on the outer border,
excepting the subcosto-median and medio-submedian interspaces, all ranged
in a series curving more strongly than the outer border. The hind wing is
nearly uniform on the basal half, but beyond is crossed by transverse,
curving, dark, cloudy bands, broadening on the nervures and enclosing
between them roundish or transversely ovate pale spots.
The abdomen is stout, half as long as the hind wings, well arched, and
the terminal segment (of the female?) half as long as broad, the segments
provided with a latero-dorsal and pleural row of very small, vertically
ovate, pale spots.
This genus differs from Thais (Pl. III, figs. 2, 4) and the other
genera allied to the swallow-tails in about the same degree as they do
among themselves. It is closely allied to Thais in most particulars;
the antennæ resemble those of Thais, more than they do those of other
genera, if we except only Sericinus; in the form of the wings it lies
midway between Thais and Archon; as to neuration the discoidal cell of
the fore wings has the form seen in Sericinus, being broadest apically,
while in Parnassius (Pl. III, fig. 5), Thais and Eurycus it is largest
in the middle; but it is shorter than half the length of the wing, while
in Sericinus, as in all the other genera, it is considerably more than
half the length of the wing; the tip of the cell is limited above, in
most of these genera, by the vein closing the cell; that is, the inferior
subcostal nervule originates beyond the tip of the cell; but in Thais
it originates at the tip of the cell, while in Thaites the cell is
limited by the inferior subcostal nervule and the vein closing the cell
originates from it; in other particulars of its neuration it resembles
the tailed Sericinus.
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