4 p. : 1 ill. ; 24 cm.Includes 1 bibliographical reference (p. 4)

Cazier, Mont A.

American Museum of Natural History Scientific Publications

AMEIR]ICAN MUSEUMNOV ITATE SPUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORYCITY OF NEW YORK MAY 14, 1952 NUMBER 1566NEW WEST INDIAN SCARABAEIDAE ANDCERAMBYCIDAE (COLEOPTERA)By MONT A. CAZIER'During the course of studies dealing with the CerambyCidae ofthe Bahama Islands and the Diplotaxis of Mexico, the followingtwo new West Indian species were discovered.Plectromerus crenulatus, new speciesFigure 1Medium-sized, testaceous, pronotum with five dark spots,elytra with two dark fasciae, base of head and disc of pronotumcrenulate, pronotum and elytra sparsely clothed with short de-cumbent yellowish hairs, elytra with sparsely scattered, long,erect, yellow hairs; legs strongly petiolate, clavate portion un-identate postmedially, posterior margin finely serrate, tibiaeslightly sinuate basally.FEMALE: Head with anterior portion of front nearly flat, densely,coarsely punctate, alutaceous, front between antennae slightlyconcave, with fine median longitudinal impressed line, surfacedeeply, densely punctate, vertex deeply, irregularly punctateanteriorly, base strongly transversely crenulate, surface with asingle long, erect hair in front of each antennal insertion, remain-der sparsely clothed with short decumbent pile; anterior marginsof epistoma and labrum truncate; mandibles deeply, longitudi-nally punctuate at base, single long, erect, lateral basal hair; eyessmall, not emarginate internally; antennae a little longer thanbody, first segment rounded, gradually enlarged apically, secondsegment half as long as three, first segment longer than three,'Chairman and Associate Curator, Department of Insects and Spiders, theAmerican Museum of Natural History.2 AMERICAN MUSEUM NOVITATES NO. 1566FIG. 1. Female holotype of Plectromerus crenulatus.fourth slightly shorter than three, fifth segment about two-thirdslength of three and four combined, sixth and succeeding segmentsslightly shorter than five and progressively shorter to 11 which isslightly longer than 10, all segments densely clothed with short,decumbent yellowish hairs and a few scattered longer erect hairs.Pronotum longer than wide, rounded, widest at anterior margin,anterior margin produced medially, lateral margin slightly sinu-ate in anterior third, more strongly sinuate in basal third, poste-rior margin shallowly bisinuate, narrower than anterior margin;surface alutaceous, uneven, center of disc elevated, slightly de-pressed before and behind the elevation, elevated area stronglycrenulate, anterior margin sparsely and finely crenulate, basalmargin impunctate, sides with large, shallow, irregularly placedpunctures, surface sparsely clothed with short, decumbent, yellowhairs, disc marked with two lateral, antemedian, light brown spotson elevation, one median, longitudinal, light brown line just be-hind middle and two smaller lateral spots at base; scutellumnearly square, side margins parallel, apical margin evenly rounded.Elytra wider than pronotum, side margins parallel to apical third,evenly rounded to apex, each elytron separately rounded apically,surface at base moderately densely punctate, punctures large,separated by about their own widths, more sparsely punctate andpunctures smaller towards apex, disc shallowly longitudinallyimpressed, suture slightly elevated medially, surface with sparselyand irregularly placed, long, erect hairs, each puncture with ashort, decumbent yellow hair; each elytron marked with twolight brown fasciae, one at basal third extending obliquely inwardand posteriorly, not reaching lateral margin or suture, narrowed1952 NEW WEST INDIAN COLEOPTERA 3internally, wider transverse band at apical third extending almostto suture and lateral margins. Under surface and legs uniformlytestaceous, prosternum impunctate, mesosternum, metasternum,and abdomen with a few widely scattered fine punctures, sparselyclothed with short decumbent yellowish hairs and a few longererect hairs; legs with femora strongly petiolate, moderately,densely clothed with short, decumbent, yellowish hairs, femorastrongly dentate beneath, spine postmedian, posterior margin ofspine finely serrate, tibiae shallowly sinuate at base, last abdom-inal segment broadly, evenly rounded apically.Length, 5.0 mm.; width, 1.2 mm.TYPE MATERIAL: Holotype, female, collected at Manville,Haiti, February 6-10, 1922, at about 60 feet elevation, in thecollection of the American Museum of Natural History.This species appears to be most closely related to Plectromerusornatus Fisher but can be separated from it by having the pro-notum widest just behind anterior margin, the base of head anddisc of pronotum crenulate, by having only two fasciae on theelytra and long, erect, scattered hairs as well as short decumbenthairs, and by the finely serrate posterior margin of the femoralspine.Diplotaxis jamaicensis, new speciesMedium-sized, clothed with very short inconspicuous hairs, onein each puncture; labrum nearly flat above, broadly, arcuatelyemarginate below; mentum broadly declivous in front, declivitymargined behind with transverse ridge and a row of erect setae;pronotal angles not impressed; side margins not sinuate; frontof head without strong postclypeal convexity; metasternum nor-mally long; tarsal claws with tooth antemedian as long as superiorportion; anterior clypeal margin shallowly emarginate medially;pronotal margins strongly arcuate; tarsal claws not densely pi-lose beneath; pronotum not sulcate medially, punctures large andapproximate; color black.Head moderately convex, front with surface densely punctate,punctures large, separated by about one-half their own widths,moderately declivous anteriorly, shallow, median, postclypealimpression, vertex more sparsely punctate; clypeal suture in-distinct medially, lateral angles evenly rounded, surface densely,deeply punctate, canthus slightly angulate; labrum sparselyminutely punctate, sparsely pilose; antennae 10-segmented.4 AMERICAN MUSEUM NOVITATES NO. 1566Pronotum with side margins broadly rounded, surface densely,irregularly punctate, punctures large, surface between puncturessmooth; scutellum subtriangular, sparsely punctate. Elytrawith surface irregularly punctate between two discal striae, punc-tures large, with elevated centers, surface very minutely alutace-ous. Under surface with abdomen sparsely punctate, punctureslarge, separated by about one-fourth to one-half of their ownwidths, each puncture with a moderately long, suberect hair,segments strongly margined laterally, last segment strongly im-pressed above pygidium; pygidium small, deeply rugosely punc-tate, sparsely pilose; anterior tibiae tridentate, inner spineantemedian.Length, 9.0 mm.; width, 5.0 mm.TYPE MATERIAL: Holotype collected in Jamaica, British WestIndies, 1916 (A. H. Ritchie) in decaying coconut; three parato-potypes; two paratypes from Constant Spring, St. Andrew,Jamaica, April 11, 1936, about 650 feet; one paratype from Clare-mont, Jamaica, March 10, 1931; one paratype from PleasantHill, Blue Mountain, Jamaica, July 30, 1923; one paratype fromFalmouth, Jamaica, February 26, 1931; four paratypes fromJamaica. Holotype and paratypes in the British Museum(Natural History), paratypes in the collection of the AmericanMuseum of Natural History.In the 13 specimens there is considerable variability in thealutaceous sculpturing that is not correlated with the sexes.Seven specimens are strongly alutaceous, five are feebly alu-taceous, and one is intermediate. The strongly alutaceous speci-mens are, on the average, larger. Four specimens are rufous orpiceous rather than black.This species will key to D. carbonata LeConte in Fall's key(1909) but can be separated from it by the larger and more denselyplaced head, pronotal and elytral punctures, by its larger size,and by having the abdominal segments margined laterally.From D. ebenina Blanchard (Martinique), the only other speciesfrom the West Indies, it can be distinguished by the fact that itis of smaller size, the pronotum is not longitudinally striate or im-pressed, the head punctures are very large, there are no trans-verse pits on the vertex, and the elytra are not costate.SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHYFALL, H. C.1909. Revision of the species of Diplotaxis of the United States. Trans.Amer. Ent. Soc., vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 1-97.

New West Indian Coleoptera

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