Phoenicoprocta vacillans (Walker, 1856)

Walker, F. (1856). List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the
Collection of the British Museum, Part 7, Lepidoptera Heterocera: p.
1617 (as Eunomia vacillans). Latin diagnosis followed by Walker's own
English description.

Eunomia vacillans.

Mas. Atra; caput supra cyaneum; thorax margine antico vittisque duabus
cyaneis; abdomen e maculis cyaneis trivittatum, apice coccineum, subtus
basi album; coxae anticae tarsique postici subtus alba; alae limpidae,
marginibus apicibusque nigris, anticae striga discali.

This species and E. sordida may be distinguished from all the other
Eunomiae by their narrow wings. Male. Deep black. Head blue above. Thorax
blue in front, and with two blue stripes. Abdomen with three rows of
pale blue spots; tip crimson; under side white at the base. Fore coxae
and hind tarsi white beneath. Wings limpid, narrow, with black tips,
borders and veins. Fore wings with the usual black streak at the tip of
the discal areolet. Length of the body 6 lines; of the wings 12 lines.

Valley of the Amazon. In Mr. Saunders' collection.

Hampson, G. F. (1898). Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalaenae in the
British Museum, vol. 1, Syntomidae: p. 197, pl. 7, fig. 11.

404. Phoenicoprocta vacillans. (Plate VII. fig. 11.)

Eunomia vacillans, Wlk. vii. 1617 (1856); Kirby, Cat. Het. p. 150.

Male. Black; metallic blue patches on frons, vertex of head, tegulae,
patagia, and thorax; fore coxae white and crimson; abdomen with metallic
blue dorsal and subdorsal spots on 1st segment, and dorsal and lateral
series of silvery blue spots, the tufts on terminal segment crimson, the
ventral valve with white patch; wings hyaline, the veins and margins
rather broadly black. Fore wing with discocellular spot; the terminal
band expanding to costa.

Ab. 1. Abdomen with the terminal three or four segments crimson.

Hab. Colombia, Bogota (Buckley); Brazil, Sao Paulo, type, St. Catharina,
1 male var. Exp. 34 millim.

Draudt, M. (1915). Phoenicoprocta. In: Seitz, A. (ed.), The
Macrolepidoptera of the World, vol. 6, The American Bombyces and
Sphinges: p. 57, pl. 12 a, b.

P. vacillans Wkr. (12 a) has a black body with a carmine anal tuft, spots
on the forehead, vertex, collar, shoulder-covers and thorax are metallic
blue, dorsal and lateral spots at the abdomen are more silvery
greenish-blue; forehips white and red. The hyaline wings exhibit broad
black margins. Occurring from Venezuela to Bolivia. - auriflua form. nov.
(12 b) may be the name of the subspecies sometimes flying among the
typical form, in which the anal tuft is of an ochreous-yellow to orange
tinge. - In another form: punicea Strand (= ab. 1 Hmps.) beside the anal
tuft also the last 3 or 4 segments are carmine. In the form: nigropeltata
Strand from Trinidad the ventral valve is black with a white hind-margin.

Draudt adds in the Additions and Corrections (p. 199):

P. 57, line 11 from above, to vacillans add: According to a publication
by Draudt, the breeder H. W. B. Moore in Brit. Guiana has bred from a
laying a very variable series, among which there were beside the
nomenclatural form metachrysea Druce, chrysorrhoea Hmps., furthermore
Leucotmemis thoracica Schs. and L. albigutta Schs.; consequently, the
species mentioned last would be merely forms of vacillans!