ACANTHATHOUS. — PYEOPHOKUS. 463 



Head thickly, finely punctate, deeply triangularly excavate in front ; the front prominent, broadly truncate 

 at the apex ; the eyes large ; antennae slender, about half the length of the body in the male, much shorter 

 in the female, joint 2 very short, 3 elongate, as long as 4. Prothorax as long as broad, very gradually 

 narrowing from the base in the male, a little more rounded at the sides in the female, the sides sharply 

 margined : the hind angles excessively elongate, narrow, strongly divergent, acute, and recurved at the 

 tip, carinate, the carina not quite reaching the apex ; the surface finely and rather sparsely punctured, 

 the punctuation becoming coarser and closer at the sides behind, ohsoletely canaliculate down the middle in 

 some specimens. Elytra three times the length of the prothorax, and of about the same width as it at 

 the base, obliquely narrowing from about the middle, depressed at the base near the scutellum, and broadly 

 truncate at the apex, with the outer apical angle produced into a long, sharp spine, and the inner angle 

 subacute ; finely punctate-striate, the interstices convex, flatter towards the suture, finely and rather 

 sparsely punctate, subgramilate on the basal declivity. Beneath finely and rather sparsely punctured ; 

 fifth ventral segment armed with a long, sharp spine in the centre at the apex. 

 Length 9-10g, breadth 2|-2§, to tips of the hind angles of the prothorax 3-3| millim. ( 6* $ •) 



Eab. Guatemala, Cerro Zunil 4000 to 5000 feet {Champion). 

 Ten examples. 



Group PYROPHORINI. 



PYROPHOKUS. 



Pyrophorus, Illiger, Mag. Ges. nat. Freund. i. p. 141 (1809) ; Germar, Zeitschr. fur Ent. iii. p. 1 ; 



Candeze., Monogr. Elat. iv. p. 3; Cat. Method. Elat. p. 157. 

 Hypsiophthalmus, Latreille, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. iii. p. 145 (1834). 

 Belania, Castelnau, Hist. Nat. Ins., Col. i. p. 236 (1840). 

 Stilpnus, Castelnau, loc. cit. 

 Phanophorus, Solier, in Gay's Hist. fis. y polit. de Chile, Zool. v. p. 26 (1851). 



This remarkable genus, characteristic of the warmer regions of the New World, 

 contains eighty-five * described species, eleven only of which inhabit Central America, 

 to which five others are now added. One species inhabits the Southern United States 

 and Northern Mexico, and a few occur in Chili, Uruguay, and the Argentine Eepublic, 

 the remainder being confined to the tropical portions of the American continent and 

 the Antilles. With the exception of two allied forms found in the New Hebrides and 

 the Fiji Islands, belonging to the genus Photophorus, Cand., and two from New Caledonia 

 described by M. Fleutiaux, probably not really appertaining to Pyrophorus, the 

 luminous Elateridae are entirely absent from the Old World. In some few species 

 included in Pyrophorus by Dr. Candeze the luminous vesicles on the thorax are indistinct 

 or obsolete two of these forms — P. melanoxanthus and the Colombian P. abnormis, 

 Cand., which also differ in the form of the meso- and metasternum, — are here treated 

 as generically distinct under the name Alampes. 



The Central- American Pyrophori belong to Sections I. or II. of Candeze, his Sections 

 III.-VII. not being represented within our limits. The various species are very 

 closely allied, and in some cases difficult to separate, but many of them can be easily 



* The two species from New Caledonia are not counted. 



