;4 TERTIARY COLEOPTERA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



PHILONTHUS MAKCIDULUS sp. nov. 



I 'I. VI. tiys. :>. s. is, u. 



A large species, broadest ;it or beyond the tips of the elytra, the abdo- 

 men tapering considerably beyond the middle. It was apparently black, 

 or the abdomen possibly mahogany-black. The head is large, snbquad- 

 rate, apparently of about equal length and breadth, with slightly rounded 

 posterior angles and a slight neck; it is largest at or behind the middle, the 

 eyes similar to but a little larger than those of P. ci/fii/ipi'iniis Fabr., which 

 it seems most to resemble, and the surface is smooth and glistening, with a 

 few scattered., long, fine bristles; the mandibles are long and finely pointed, 

 but much stouter and somewhat shorter than \nP.cyanipennis; the antennae 

 reach back only to or slightly beyond the middle of the prothorax, being 

 considerably shorter than in most modern Philonthi, the brevity resulting 

 from the lesser length of the elongated basal joints, and especially from the 

 shorter basal joint, which appears to be scarcely more than half its usual 

 length in recent Philonthi; the apical joints do not differ. The prothorax 

 is subquadrate but broader than long, broadest posteriorly, with rounded 

 sides, well-rounded posterior angles and roundly angulated anterior angles, 

 the surface smooth and with no clearly perceptible punctures, though these 

 may have existed. The legs are precisely similar to those of P. ci/anipetinis 

 in form and clothing, particularly the armature of the tibia-, but are some- 

 what shorter in proportion, the hind legs, for instance, being considerably 

 less than half as long as the body, while in 7'. (//(ti/ijx'intix they are consider- 

 ably more than half as long. The elytra are a third longer than the pro- 

 thorax, rather minutely and obscurely punctate and villoiis, margined at the 

 suture. The wings, one of which is pretty well exposed in one of the speci- 

 mens (see fig. ")), reach to the last segment of the abdomen, are of a smoother 

 outline than is figured for Philonthus by 1'urmeister, 1 and are of precisely 

 similar general character, the space hetweeii the mediastinal and scapular 

 veins lieinjr delicately corneous, but the thickened recurved vein connect- 

 ing the upper branch of the externomedian with the scapular, beyond the 

 joint, is more distinctly a vein in the fossil and completely unites these two 

 veins, springing as it does distinctly from the externomedian. The two 

 branches of the externomedian unite at the same point in each, but in the 



1 Untersuchungen fiber die Fliigeltypen der <'<ili-<i|itt>r<>n, I'l.. ti'_<. 17. 1855. 



