HEMIPTBRA— HETEROPTEEA— PHYSAPODES. 37 1 



Family PHYSAPODES Dum^ril. 



These minute flower insects have been found in considerable numbers 

 in Tertiary deposits. Aix, Oeningen, Rott, and aml)er have each yielded 

 more than one species of Thrips, fifteen in all, of which nearly half come 

 from Rott. Besides this Rott has furnished four species of Heliothrips and 

 one of Phloeothrips, while an extinct genus Calothrips is represented at Aix 

 by a single species. In our own country they have been detected only in 

 the White River beds, where one species each of the genera Melanothrips, 

 Lithadothrips, and Palseothrips have been found and are described below ; 

 the last two of the genera are extinct. 



t5^ 



MELANOTHRIPS Haliday. 



The only species of this genus that has been found fossil is the one 

 described below. So far as I know Melanothrips has not been observed 

 this country among recent insects, but only in Europe ; but so little in 

 attention has been paid to our native species of Physapodes that this is of 

 little significance. . 



& 



Melanothrips extincta. 



PI. 5, Figs. 90, 91. 



Melanoihrip8 extincta Sciidd., Bull. U. S. Geol. Geogr. Surv. Terr., I, 2'21 (187.5). 



Head small, tapering ; the only appendages visible are the antennae ; 

 these are only sufficiently preserved to recognize that they are very long 

 and slender, longer than the thorax. The thorax is rather small, quadrate; 

 wings nearly as long as the body, fringed on the costal border as in Palaeo- 

 thrips fossilis. The abdomen is composed of only eight joints, but is very 

 long and very tapering, fusiform, tlie last joint produced, as usual in the 

 physapods ; the third joint is the broadest ; of the wings only the costal 

 border and a part of one of the longitudinal veins can be seen ; there are 

 no remains of legs. 



Length of body, 2.2'"™ ; of antenme, CS™"' ; of head, 0.14""" ; of thorax, 

 0.5°"" ; of abdomen, 1..56""" ; greatest breadth of abdomen, 5'""'. 



Chagrin Valley, White River, Colorado. One specimen, W. peiiton. 



