Platyprepia virginalis (Boisduval, 1852)

Boisduval, J. B. A. D. de (1852). Lépidoptères de la Californie. Annales de la
Société entomologique de France (2) 10: p. 321. Described in the genus Chelonia.
Translated from the French original (with the Latin diagnosis).

90. Chelonia virginalis.

Fore wings black with about twenty yellowish-white spots; hind wings fulvous
with black bands; abdomen black beneath, fulvous above with black rings.

This beautiful species has the habitus and the size of our Villica, but by its
antennae, almost filiform in the male, it comes closer to our Matronula. Upper
side of the wings black, with about twenty spots of the same yellow as in
Villica. Hind wings likewise of the same fulvous, with three bands and the
principal veins black; the band at the extremity incomplete, ending well before
the anal angle; sometimes all these bands are joined by the veins, the ground is
then black, chequered with fulvous. Head fulvous; thorax black, with the
shoulder-covers yellow; scutellum fulvous; body fulvous above, with black rings,
blue-black beneath. Under side of the hind wings as the upper side. Under side
of the fore wings with the spots of the base and of the middle fulvous. Female
similar to the male.

Environs of San Francisco.

Seitz, A. (1920). Platyprepia. In: Seitz, A. (ed.), The Macrolepidoptera of the
World, vol. 6, The American Bombyces and Sphinges: pp. 325-326, pl. 42 a (German
edition: Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 6: 325-326).

P. virginalis Bsd. (= ochracea Stretch) (42 a). Forewings black with rows of
white guttiform spots, hindwings of a bright yellow with black macular bands, in
the ♂ sometimes with much black. -- guttata Bsd. (42 a) has quite black
hindwings except some honey-coloured guttiform, antemarginal spots, the abdomen
is likewise above black and the white spots on the forewing stated by the author
to be 18 are somewhat smaller. -- From the Rocky Mountains to the west as far as
California, in Wyoming and Colorado in some parts common. One of the most
beautiful North American Arctiids. The form guttata is much rarer.