CERAMBYCID^E 3 23 



Hyperplatys Hald. 



In the globular, prominent and more or less narrowly separated 

 coxae, this genus conforms well with the other genera of the Leiopus 

 group, but the upper surface is here flatter than in any of the others 

 and is separated from the flat and feebly inflexed flanks* by a 

 sharply marked and often prominently cariniform line of flexure. 

 The style or type of ornamentation is also wholly different from 

 either Leiopus or Lepturges; so there can be no doubt that the genus 

 is valid, and not a synonym of Leiopus as stated in the Munich 

 catalogue. The neotropical genus Anisopodus is also allied rather 

 closely to Hyperplatys, and the species described by Bates under 

 the names Anisopodus argus, pardalis and pusillus are evidently 

 Hyperplatys rather than Anisopodus, the last two without the least 

 doubt; argus, however, would be by far the largest known species, 

 and, in view of its extreme southern habitat, may prove to be dif- 

 ferent, although it seems to have very nearly the same type of 

 ornamentation. In fact Bates himself, who had previously over- 

 looked Hyperplatys, presumably because of the Munich catalogue 

 synonymy, states later on, under pardalis that that species at least 

 might with equal propriety be placed in Hyperplatys. 



The femora are always strongly clavate in the male and sometimes 

 very strongly so in that sex and less clavate, though mutually sub- 

 equally so in the female, but in one species, of isolated habitat and 

 distinct appearance calif ornica Csy., the hind femora of the 

 female become linear, or at least non-clavate, as in most forms of 

 Lepturges. The elytral apices are always narrowly, very obliquely 

 and deeply sinuato-truncate, with the outer angles prolonged pos- 

 teriorly, sometimes, as in the notably aberrant femoralis of Halde- 

 man, becoming finely aciculate and very prominent. The thoracic 

 spines are as in Lepturges, though smaller, more abrupt and more 

 aciculate. The basal joint of the slender hind tarsi is always very 

 elongate, generally longer especially in the male, though some- 

 times a little shorter in both sexes, than the remainder. The 

 antennae are twice as long as the body or more and finely capillary. 



* Not "epipleura," as written by Bates; the true epipleura, as so well developed for 

 instance in Coccinellidae, being a very different structure from the deflexed to feebly 

 inflexed flanks, even when divided from the upper surface by a prominent line as here 

 and also in many Tenebrionid genera. 



