OPTATUS. 185 
Sect. OPTATIDES. 
This section is here used provisionally to include the Tropical-American genera 
Optatus, Telemus, Pardisomus, Eurypages, Sympages, and Lydamis, of Pascoe, 
Macroptatus, Heller, and Cyrionyx, Faust, all of which seem to me to be best removed 
from the “Centrinides” of Lacordaire, and placed near the “ Pantotelides.” They 
have the mandibles toothed on their inner edge; the anterior coxee contiguous or 
narrowly separated (except in such broad forms as Macroptatus and Eurypages); the 
prosternum unarmed in the male, not raised between the cox, and with the ante- 
coxal portion usually more or less sulcate down the middle; the scutellum well- 
developed (except in Pseudoptatus) ; the elytra broad and subtriangular, sometimes with 
laterally projecting humeri; the femora sharply dentate or denticulate ; the tibiz rarely 
bidentate externally (Pseudoptatus); the males in certain genera with the tibie ciliate 
(Pardisomus) or the anterior tarsi greatly dilated and hairy (Optatus, Telemus, Eurypages, 
and Macroptatus) ; the body rhomboidal or subovate, more or less squamose. 
Various other ** Centrinides” belong here, as Scambus galeatus, Boh., &c. 
OPTATUS. 
Optatus, Pascoe, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (6) iv. pp. 822, 327 (1889). 
Three species of Optatus are enumerated from within our limits, all from Mexico 
or Guatemala. Its chief characters are, the contiguous anterior coxe, the unarmed 
prosternum, with rather broad, shallow, or deep median sulcus, the bidentate mandibles, 
the long, curved rostrum, the sharply dentate, feebly clavate femora, the greatly 
dilated anterior tarsi of the male, and the connate tarsal claws. The general shape 
is broad and rhomboidal, and the vestiture is close or fasciculate. 
1. Optatus palmaris. (Tab. XI. figg. 5, 5a, 3.) 
3. Centrinus palmaris, Pasc. Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (6) iv. p. 826°, 
Centrinus miniatus, Chevr, in litt.’. 
Hab. Mexico! (Truqui, coll. Fry), Cuernavaca (Sallé), Tehuantepec (Mus. Brit.). 
We have received one male and two females of this species and there are various 
others in the British Museum. It is readily recognizable by the vermilion-red, oblique, 
submarginal stripe on each side of the prothorax, which extends downward on to the 
flanks at the base and apex, each stripe being bordered within and without by two 
large bare black spots; the mesosternal side-pieces, the metathoracic episterna (except 
in front), and the sides of the abdomen are also thickly clothed with vermilion-red 
scales. ‘The first two ventral segments are broadly excavate down the middle in the 
male. ‘The prosternal sulcus is rather deep and limited on each side by a sharp ridge, 
The red scales are of a paler tint in some specimens. 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Coleopt., Vol. IV. Pt. 5, May 1907. 2 BB 
