1 74 Zoology of Colorado 



attractive group, great favorites with collectors. They were 

 probably even more abundant in former times than now, no less 

 than 28 species having been found fossil at Florissant. 



The weevils or Curculionidae are excessively numerous, and 

 often difficult to distinguish. The head is prolonged into a snout 

 or beak, at the end of which is the mouth. One of our most 

 familiar kinds is the deep red Rhynchites bicolor wickhami, which 

 is very injurious to rose bushes, attacking the buds and causing 

 them to wither. Related to the weevils, but with very short and 

 broad rostrum are the Scolytidae or bark beetles, which do great 

 damage to forest trees. On stripping off the bark of a dead tree 

 their radiating galleries may often be seen. There is a small 

 species which lives in seeds of Pinus flexilis at Ward. 



There is a very important series of beetles known as Hetero- 

 mera, distinguished by having the hind tarsi with fewer joints 

 than those of the other legs. There are probably nearly 20,000 

 species known in the world, and of these a considerable number 

 occur in Colorado. Some of the families include few species, or 

 the species are small and inconspicuous, but others come to the 

 notice of any one who pays the least attention to insects. The 

 Mordellidae, obtuse in front and sharply pointed behind, are 

 small beetles common on flowers. They are agile, and at the least 

 disturbance fall to the ground. The Meloidae or blister beetles, 

 and the Tenebrionidae or darkling beetles are the most important 

 families. Meloidae are soft bodied beetles, the thorax narrowed 

 behind the head, giving the appearance of a neck. The adults 

 are often destructive to vegetation, while the larvae are parasitic 

 in nests of wild bees, or in some instances feed on the eggs of 

 grasshoppers. Our most conspicuous species is the green Lytta 

 nuttalli, three-quarters of an inch long or more. It occurs on 

 herbaceous plants in the mountains, and was named by Say 

 after Nuttall, the distinguished botanist and all-round naturalist 

 who explored the west in the early days. Species of Meloe are 

 large and fat, black, with short wing covers and no wings. They 

 exude an oily fluid from the joints when disturbed, and must on 

 no account be collected in a bottle with other insects, or they 

 will ruin the whole lot. A still more singular form is the Leonidia 

 neomexicana, which is completely apterous and larva-like, and 

 lives in the nests of the tunnelling Anthophora bee. It is found 



