Virbia endomelaena Dognin, 1914

Dognin, P. (1914). Hétérocères nouveaux de l'Amérique du Sud, fascicule 7:
p. 18. Original description. Translated from the French original.

Virbia endomelaena, sp. nov.

27 mm. -- Palpi, head, thorax, venter and legs brown; upper side of the
abdomen blackish brown with a bluish sheen, striped laterally with yellow.
Forewings brown with a very small yellow discal dot. Hindwings blackish
brown with a very large central yellow patch starting from the base, its
edge straight subcostally until about the last fifth, then slightly rounded
as far as vein 3, then turning back onto the middle of vein 2, then
submedianly to the base; a thin yellow basal line along the abdominal
margin. Fringes brown.

Muzo (400 to 800 metres), Colombia; one male (Fassl).

Hampson, G. F. (1920). Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalaenae in the British
Museum, Supplement vol. 2, Arctianae: p. 322, no. 1596 z, pl. LVII, fig. 1.

1596 z. Virbia endomelaena. (Plate LVII. fig. 1.)

Virbia endomelaena, Dogn. Hét. Nouv. Am. Sud, vii. p. 18 (1914).

Male. Head and thorax dark reddish brown; antennae black; abdomen
black-brown with lateral yellow stripes, the ventral surface reddish brown.
Fore wing dark reddish brown irrorated with greyish, a slight yellow
discoidal point. Hind wing orange-yellow, the terminal area black-brown
expanding at apex and from below vein 3 running up on inner area to a point
close to the base. Underside of fore wing with slight yellowish discoidal
spot.

Hab. Colombia, Muzo (Fassl), type male in Coll. Dognin. Exp. 30 millim.

Seitz, A. (1919). Virbia. In: Seitz, A. (ed.), The Macrolepidoptera of the
World, vol. 6, The American Bombyces and Sphinges: p. 297. (German edition:
Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 6: 297.)

V. endomelaena Dogn. Size of medarda (38 d), but the otherwise brown
forewing exhibits a minute, creamy-white discal spot; the hindwing with a
yellow, central longitudinal spot, something like in fasciata (38 e), but
broader. From Muzo in Colombia.

The two species referred to, medarda and fasciata, are described by Seitz on
the preceding page (p. 296) as follows:

V. medarda Stoll (38 d) is larger than ovata. The marginal band of the
hindwing does not reach the proximal angle, but it turns round, before it,
in a wedge-shaped point, towards the base of the wing. Distributed in South
and Central America and mostly not rare. -- minuta Fldr. is scarcely more
than half as large as medarda; the black distal band of the hindwing
sometimes extends yet to the proximal margin, after having deposited the
black wedge-shaped ray on the base of the hindwing. Mexico, through Central
America as far as the Amazon. -- parva Schs. from Colombia and Ecuador
differs from this small form by the black of the marginal band outweighing
the orange of the hindwing, so that the latter runs through the hindwing
almost like a broad median band. -- In the form mentiens Wkr. the marginal
band of the hindwing is angled at the end of the proximal margin, and the
yellow median spot of the forewing beneath is distally cut off in a straight
line. -- flemmingi Rothsch. from Ecuador has longer and narrower wings than
mentiens, the black distal band of the hindwing is of a constant width and
the yellow part of the proximal margin does not exactly reach as far as the
anal angle, but the marginal band extends as far as the latter. -- In
luteilinea Wkr. (38 e) from Mexico, the size of which is between medarda and
minuta, the yellow inner-marginal part of the male is very broad and cut off
quite straight towards the black wedge-shaped ray. This form is presumably
identical with Josiodes inversa H. Edw. Hampson takes most of the forms of
this species to be synonyms, whereas according to Rothschild some are of
different species. In fact specimens from Muzo differ from those from
Villavicencio, the latter from those from Ecuador, Panama or Bolivia in the
marginal band of the hindwing and on the under surface, but there are almost
everywhere transitions to be found.

V. fasciata Rothsch. (38 e) from Ecuador and Colombia is considerably larger
than divisa, with broader forewings, the orange stripe in the hindwing being
narrower and beneath not so sharply defined.

The species fasciata is compared with, divisa, is described on the same page
(p. 296) as follows:

V. divisa Wkr. (38 d) is still larger than affinis; the forewings are very
dark sepia-brown, almost black; on the hindwing the orange is confined to a
broad wedge-shaped spot below the costa and to a minute inner-marginal
stripe near the base. Distributed from Nicaragua over Guiana as far as South
Brazil and Paraguay; near Rio de Janeiro and Santos not rare.