Setina alpestris Zeller, 1865

Zeller, P. C. (1865). Nachricht ueber einige Falter der Meseritzer Gegend.
Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung 26: pp. 33-34 (in the account of Setina
Kuhlweinii, pp. 29-37). Translated from the German original.

Besides, I have before me -- as a variety of Aurita -- 3 males and 4 females of
Lederer's and 2 males of my own collection, which I cannot regard as Aurita.
They are somewhat larger than Aurita and the black point at the base of the fore
wing is absent, while the size of the other spots (particularly large in one
female) is variable; their body is for the most part rust-yellow, namely: on the
head, at least in the face, on the scutellum and in a fair extent around it, on
the hind margins of the dark grey or blackish first six abdominal segments, as
well as on the rest of the abdomen. On the underside of the fore wings, at least
in 4 males, the subcostal and the median vein, and of the latter partly the
branches, are broadly suffused with blackish; in the remaining males and the
females there is as little black on the veins here as in Aurita and Kuhlweinii.
There is surely no doubt that these specimens are of the same species as those
which Speyer saw at Stentz "in considerable number from the neighbourhood of
Botzen"; they too are from the Alps, namely most of them from the Valais, two
from the Balkan. Now Speyer says, it is true, that the Tyrolean ones like the
North German ones had the size, the build of the body, of the antennae and wings
as in Irrorella, and that the former agreed completely with the latter except in
the vividness of the ground colour. I find that these alpine specimens have
antennae which are more strongly serrate than in Kuhlweinii, but more shortly
ciliated than in Aurita. I therefore consider it expedient to distinguish these
alpine specimens, on account of their antennae, on account of their size, which
is nevertheless reached by many a Kuhlweinii of this district, and on account of
the underside of the male fore wings, which in the majority seems to be
blackened, by a special name: alpestris, as a possibly distinct species.

The Aurita with which it is compared is characterised in the same work (p. 33),
immediately before, as follows. Translated from the German original.

Secondly, species rank must be granted to Aurita, although it also varies
somewhat; for, apart from the Ramosa form, its black antennae are more or less
dusted with yellow on the shaft and its abdomen is in both sexes (also often in
var. ramosa) reddish-yellow in a lateral stripe and on the hind margins of the
posterior segments; the wings also vary in their elongation; the size is by no
means always above that of our northern Kuhlweinii, and even the vividness of
the rust-yellow colour is not always without gradation, indeed in many specimens
of Ramosa very pale. What characterises it as a species is the following: 1) on
the fore wings there is a black point near the base on the subcostal vein, which
just makes it explicable how in Ramosa the black lines can reach as far as there
and how this cannot occur at all in Kuhlweinii; 2) the male antennae are, as
Speyer has remarked, decidedly more strongly serrate and more longly ciliated;
3) the head, except sometimes around the mouth, where the hairs are then grey,
and the scutellum are always deep black.

Hampson, G. F. (1900). Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalaenae in the British
Museum, vol. 2: p. 417. Treated as Ab. 1 of Endrosa kuhlweini.

885. Endrosa kuhlweini.

Bombyx kuhlweini, Hubn. Eur. Schmett. ii. ff. 290-291 (1827); Dup. Lep. Fr.
Suppl. ii. p. 39, pl. 3. f. 4; Staud. Cat. p. 53; Kirby, Cat. Het. p. 306.

Setina alpestris, Zell. Stett. ent. Zeit. xxvi. p. 34 (1865).

Orange; frons and thorax with patches of black. Fore wing with oblique medial
series of three black points; a postmedial series of four spots, those at upper
and lower angles of cell somewhat dentate; a more or less developed and complete
subterminal series of spots, those above veins 2, 4, and 5 placed slightly
further from termen. Hind wing with more or less developed subterminal series of
spots, those towards apex always developed.

Ab. 1. alpestris. Rather larger; abdomen with black bands and the ventral
surface blacker.--Alps.

Hab. Germany, S. & E., Zell. & Frey Colls.; Austria, Frey Coll.; Switzerland,
Tyrol, Zell. & Frey Colls.; Sweden; Centr. Russia; Livonia; Armenia. Exp. 28-38
millim.

Larva. Kirby, Eur. Butt. & Moths, p. 96.

Blackish; thickly irrorated with pale yellow, forming subdorsal series of spots;
a yellow dorsal line. Food-plant, ground-lichens.

Seitz, A. (1910). Endrosa. In: Seitz, A. (ed.), The Macrolepidoptera of the
World, vol. 2, The Palaearctic Bombyces and Sphinges: p. 60, pl. 11 k, l (German
edition: Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 2: 60). Treated as the southern form
of Endrosa kuhlweini.

E. kuhlweini Hbn. (11 k, l). Bright pale orange yellow, the dark dots large and
distinct, usually longitudinally oval, most numerous in the row before the outer
margin. The forewing below is suffused with black. In typical specimens the
abdomen is entirely orange-yellow, or banded with black, while in ab. compluta
Hbn. it is black with the exception of the tip. In North-Eastern Germany and the
countries around the Baltic. -- alpestris Z. is the southern form, occurring in
the Alps of Switzerland and the Tyrol, as well as in South-East Europe, Asia
Minor and Armenia; considerably larger, abdomen strongly ringed with black,
antenna of male thicker. -- Larva black with yellow dorsal line, strong yellow
irroration, which forms an interrupted stripe above the legs. Hairs black above,
mixed with grey laterally; underside lighter grey-brown. Like the preceding
until May on lichens. The moths more abundant only in the Alps, local and more
singly in the plains.