REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 



175 





The Cucuyo, Pvrophorus noctilucus. 

 (After Wood.) 



Dimmock: in Kingsley's Stand. Nat. Hist., ii, Crust.-Ins., 1884, pp. 



362-363, fig. 415 (brief notice). 

 Taschenberg: Brehms Tierleben, Insekten, ix, 1892, pp. 111-113, i fig. 



Although the insect is not a member of the New York fauna, or even 

 that of the United States, a brief notice of it in this volume, may be 

 pardoned in consideration of the frequency with which examples of it are 

 brought to our notice by those whose interest has been excited by its won- 

 derful light-giving power, and are desirous of information respecting it. 



It is the famed lightning-bug of Tropical America, known by the 

 natives as the Cucuyo, and is represented in figure 12. Several living 

 examples of it were con- 

 tributed, June i6th, to the \ ^^ 

 StateEntomological Collec- 

 tion by Mrs. Edmund H. 

 Smith of Albany. They 

 had been brought to her 

 a short time previously by a 

 relative who collected them 

 in the Island of San Do- p^^ ^^ 

 mingo. 



They are large beetles, of about one inch and a half in length, belong- 

 ing to the family of ^/«/<?r/^cj, popularly known as snapping-beetles, from 

 their habit of springing several inches in the air as the only means by 

 which they can regain their feet when placed or fallen upon their back. 

 This is accomplished through an apparatus (spine and socket) on their 

 lower side, specially designed for the purpose. 



They belong to the genus Pyrophorus of Illiger, which has but a single 

 representative in the United States, viz., Pyrophorus physoderus — a 

 species which is said to be plentiful on the pine-barrens and among the 

 saw-palmettoes of Florida in the month of August, and of which an in- 

 teresting account is given in Mr. Glover's Report for the year 1873. 



The genus has large representation in South America, — about one 

 hundred species, according to Dimmock, being known. Two species 

 have recently been described from New Caledonia, an island in the 

 Pacific ocean. 



The scientific name of the tropical species under notice, Pyrophorus 

 noctilucus, has been aptly chosen, as it means " the night-flying light- 

 giver." Unlike our common lightning-bugs which with their graceful 

 flights attract admiring eyes in the evenings of June, these do not emit 

 their light in fitful flashes from the tip of their abdomen, but from the two 



