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PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 23, NO. 5, MAY, 1921 



antennal characters. Also similar to Pleurotropis utahensis 

 Crawford but is readily distinguished from that species by the 

 dark tarsi, by the relatively longer and more hairy antennal 

 joints, by the more strongly sculptured and differently colored 

 front of the head, and by slight differences in the propodeum 

 and abdominal petiole. 



Female. Length 3 mm. Head slightly broader than the thorax; vertex 

 rather flat, separated from the occiput by a sharp carinate margin, and closely 

 and strongly punctate; ocelli in an obtuse triangle, the lateral ocelli removed 

 from the eye-margin about the long diameter of an ocellus; occiput concave, 

 opaquely sculptured with a smooth line medially; eyes large, sparsely clothed 

 with whitish hairs, deeply emarginate within and less strongly so behind; 

 posterior orbits strongly punctate and clothed with rather coarse dark colored 

 hairs; malar space short, about equal in length to the antennal pedicel; front of 

 the head inflexed, above the transverse groove shining with shallow reticulations, 

 between the transverse groove and base of antennae closely and deeply punctate 

 and subopaque, just below the base of antennae weakly reticulated and shining, 

 moath-border finely opaquely punctate; antennae 10-jointed, inserted slightly 



FIG. 2 Antennae of Pleurotropis benefica Gahan. A, male; B, female. 



above the lower eyemargins and separated at base by a distinct ridge; scape 

 slender, slightly curved and more or less flattened and shining metallic on the 

 outer side, sculptured and darker on the inner side with seven to eight erect 

 hairs on the ventral margin; pedicel about twice as long as thick; three small 

 transverse ring-joints; flagellar joints all distinctly hairy; first funicle joint dis- 

 tinctly the longest, about three times as long as thick; second a little thicker 

 than the first and approximately twice as long as thick; third about as long as 

 thick and a little more closely joined to the following joint than to the preceding; 

 club 2-jointed, about equal in length to the second funicle joint, the basal club 

 joint subquadrate and as broad as the funicle, second or apical joint much 

 narrower, conical, incompletely separated from the basal joint and terminating 

 in a short but distinct spine; pronotum above with a narrow smooth posterior 



