Painted Handmaiden Moth

Description:

The adult moths have black wings with three large orange patches and two small blue marks on each forewing, a blue head, scarlet prothorax, and bands of blue and of scarlet on the abdomen. The abdomen is ringed basally with red, the next two segments are ringed blue, followed by two ringed red and then blue; in the otherwise very similar E. elegantissima there are three or four segments ringed red. Taxonomic notes: It is at present unclear whether elegantissima and polymena are distinct or forms of the same species. The polymena is known from the Indian Subregion, S.E. Asia, Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi, and hence is not completely sympatric with elegantissima. No marked differences in the male genitalia have been noted. Seitz (1912-1913) placed elegantissima in synonymy with polymena, but the two taxa are separated in the current BMNH arrangement. The lack of distributional correlation might be understandable if the two taxa reflected climate, polymena occurring where there was a marked dry season.(Wikipedia)