MORDELLID/E AND RELATIVES. 



MELANDRYIDJE (see p. 380) is another small family but it 

 contains about ten times as many species as the preceding. 

 They feed on fungi and dry vegetable matter, such as 

 dead wood. Penthe obliquata, about .5 in. long, is velvety 

 black with yellow on the scutellum; frequent under bark 

 of dead trees. 



About two dozen species of PYTHID^E (see p. 380) have 

 been described from the United States. They occur under 

 bark, especially of pine. 





 Of the (EDEMERID/E, Nacerdes melanura (Plate LXXXIV) 



should be mentioned. It is a cosmopolitan beetle which 

 is rather common in cities about cellars, old boxes, and 

 lumber yards. It varies from .3 to .5 in. in length; dull 

 yellow above, elytra tipped with blackish purple; each 

 front tibia with one spur; next to the last tarsal joints 

 broadly dilated. Other species are found on flowers, 

 leaves, and sometimes in crevices of logs, trees, or stumps. 



MORDELLID.E 



See p. 381. "This family includes a large number of 

 small, wedge-shaped beetles having the body arched, the 

 head bent downward and the abdomen usually prolonged 

 into a style or pointed process. The hind legs are, in 

 most species, very long and stout, fitted for leaping; the 

 antennae long and slender and the thorax is as wide at 

 base as the elytra. The body is densely covered with fine 

 silky hairs, usually black, but often very prettily spotted or 

 banded with yellow or silver hues. The adults occur on 

 flowers or on dead trees and are very active, flying and 

 running with great rapidity and in the net or beating 

 umbrella jumping and tumbling about in grotesque manner 

 in their efforts to escape. The larvae live in old wood 

 or in the pith of plants, and those of some species are said 

 to be carnivorous in habit, feeding upon the young of 

 Lepidoptera and Diptera which they find in the plant 

 stems" (Blatchley). The genus which has the most 

 species in our region is Mordellistena. They are usually 

 not over .25 in. long; their hind tibiae have a distinct ridge 



25 385 



