Help identify day-flying moth, NE US

[Dr. James Adams]

Dear Steve,

    (Ah, Doug, you beat me to it!!)
    
     I agree with Doug.  Your moth is very likely a tropical import.  
Where exactly did you catch it, and I don't me locality.  Was it 
outside at lights, inside somewhere, outside at flowers?  I had a 
student bring me one of these here in Georgia, only to find out later 
that he had caught it inside his house!!  The next day, upon request 
from me, he brought me an exuvia from a bunch of bananas.  There are 
a couple of different ctenuchines that show up in the U.S. 
periodically shipped in on bananas (apparently these species are 
quite resistant to any treatments the bananas are put through).  I 
know of several different people who have caught these species.  

> >Main coloration is a rich velvety black with iridescent blue or green
> >tinges on the wings and antennae.  The forward half of the rear wings
> >is pearl/cream colored, with the color demarcation a straight line
> >from base to tip.  Upper side of abdomen in velvety iridescent
> >black/green, with small (<1mm) iridescent blue spots on either side
> >of the 1st (?) abdominal segment.  The first few segments of the
> >abdomen underside are bright white.  Forewing shape is similar to
> >Cisseps fulvicollis, rear wing shape like Harrisina americana.  This
> >bug is not pictured (at least I couldn't find it) in Covell or Holland.
> >
> >Wilmington, MA, USA (12 miles north of Boston), 27 August 1997.
> 
> This sounds a *lot* like an Antichloris or related tropical Arctiid
> ("Ctenuchid"), which makes NO sense whatsoever in Boston, unless it came in
> on bananas or something (as suggested by another posting here recently
> about a cocoon found in a bunch of bananas which might have been an
> Antichloris). The hindwing description is the thing that makes it sound
> like that genus, rather than something like a Macrocneme - and it sure
> doesn't match any of the Arctiids or Zygaenids I know of from the US.
> 
> Peace,
> 
> Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
> Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
> phone: 031-448-1223, fax: 031-44-5481  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
>                   http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
> 
> 
>