MUTILLA. 311 



v 60. Mutilla astuta. 



Long. 12 millim. tf . 



Hab. Panama, Volcan de Chiriqui 4000 to 6000 feet (Champion). 



Head densely covered with griseous-white hair, which hides the sculpture. Eyes 

 moderately large, reaching nearly to the top of the head ; the head not much narrowed 

 behind them. The scape of the antennae densely covered with whitish hair; the 

 flagellum with a dull microscopic pile ; the third and fourth joints subequal. The 

 thorax a little wider than the head, coarsely, rugosely punctured; the pro- and meso- 

 notum sparsely clothed with white hair ; the pleurse densely covered with silvery- white 

 hair ; the median segment with very dense griseous hair. The pronotum at the base 

 transverse ; the sides bluntly, triangularly tuberculate. The scutellum is moderately 

 convex. The median segment with a gradually rounded slope to the apex, and with a 

 blunt short tubercle in the middle. The tegulse large, punctured, not projecting behind. 

 The petiole is a little longer than wide, not dilated towards the apex, densely covered 

 with griseous hair, except at the base, which is oblique ; above roundly convex and 

 bluntly tuberculate at the sides. The second abdominal segment is shining, punctured 

 all over, but not very strongly ; its apex with a dense band of silvery hair, dilated in 

 the middle. The other segments are faintly punctured, indistinctly keeled down the 

 middle, and with long white hair. The pygidium is more coarsely punctured than the 

 preceding segment, and with the keel distinct. The second ventral segment is more 

 strongly punctured than the dorsal, and is covered with white hair ; the other ventral 

 segments are almost impunctate, and sparsely covered with rather long white hair ; the 

 hypopygium is whitish-yellow. The wings are violaceous. The first abscissa of the 

 radial nervure is slightly curved, and one half longer than the apical abscissa, which is 

 oblique. The first and second transverse cubital nervures are oblique ; the top of the 

 second cubital is of the length of the space bounded by the first recurrent and the 

 second transverse cubital nervures ; the first recurrent nervure is received in the apical 

 third of the cellule, the second in the apical fourth ; at the bottom the third cubital 

 cellule is narrower than it is at the top ; the third transverse cubital nervure bulges 

 out in the middle. The femora are sparsely, the tibiae and tarsi densely, covered with 

 white hair. 



This species is closely related to M. culta, but may be known from it by the densely 

 haired head, the much less convex scutellum, the much smaller tooth on the median 

 segment, on which there is no keel, the shorter petiole, the more strongly punctured 

 pygidium, and the white hypopygium, and also by the second recurrent nervure being 

 received much nearer the apex of the cellule. 



Compared with M. herberti, M. astuta has the hair on the mesonotum shorter and 

 sparser, the abdomen shorter and broader, the hypopygium white (not black), and the 

 petiole differently formed — in M. astuta it rises sharply and obliquely at the base, 



