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
The body (Pl. III, fig. 12) is fully as stout as in Thanaos (Pl. III,
fig. 11), the tongue at least as long as the thorax, the eyes ovate
and larger, than in Thanaos, and the palpi with the terminal joint
proportionally larger, which is an unusual feature in the Urbicolæ. The
legs are apparently short, the wings ample. The costal margin of the fore
wings is nearly straight, being scarcely arched on the apical half, the
upper half of outer border as in Thanaos, the rest not preserved; the
costal fold of the male is narrow and extends a very little beyond the
middle of the costal border, while in Thanaos it reaches considerably
further; the hind wings have the general shape of Thanaos, but the upper
outer angle is much more produced, and the base of the costal border
is arched only to the degree that the apex is, and the portion between
them is but slightly convex; the outer border is almost precisely as
in Thanaos and the inner border is, doubtless, folded in the fossil
so as to conceal its true character. Very little of the neuration can
be determined, and what can be made out is comparatively unimportant
and agrees with the neuration of Thanaos; the third superior subcostal
nervule strikes the apex of the fore wing as in that genus. As to the
markings, the agreement with Thanaos is less striking, although the
pattern resembles that of Thanaos more closely than it does that of any
other genus. In the fore wings the spot in the cell of Thanaos is wanting
in the fossil, but in its stead there is a costal spot at the extremity
of the costal fold; the subapical spots of Thanaos depending from the
costa are distinctly repeated in Thanatites, and in addition there is a
submarginal series of small round spots of which the upper two, in the
uppermost interspaces opening on the outer border, are the only ones
visible on the fossil by its mode of preservation. On the under surface
of the hind wings of Thanatites, there is a regular submarginal series
of equal, rather small, round spots, one in each interspace, placed
between the location of the marginal and submarginal spots which occur
in Thanaos, often distinctly, occasionally as faint blurred bands, as
in _T. Juvenalis_ (Pl. III, fig. 11); the inner of these two series in
Thanaos, which corresponds best to the submarginal series of Thanatites,
is irregular instead of parallel to the border, being always bent inward
opposite the cell. Instead of the spot, placed in the costo-subcostal
interspace of Thanaos near the middle of the wing, and seen distinctly
in _T. Juvenalis_, there are two spots, which, with a third near the
base of the wing above the costal nervure, are placed at equal distances
apart and from the costal border; in addition there are two spots, seldom
even indicated in Thanaos, near the centre of the wing, the larger of
which is near the apex of the cell. These differences alone would suffice
to show that the fossil cannot be referred to Thanaos, and, with the
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