Fossil Butterflies / Memoirs of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I.

by Samuel Hubbard Scudder

BUTTERFLIES OF THE AQUITANIAN (Lower Miocene).

Thanatites vetula is the only butterfly yet found from this horizon, and this is closely related to Thanaos, a genus belonging to the north temperate zones of both hemispheres, but vastly more developed in the new world, which has at least four times as many species as the old, some of them extending into the subtropical regions. The genera adjacent to Thanaos are purely American, although tropical or subtropical, and therefore the Aquitanian butterfly looks toward subtropical North America for its relatives of the present day.