GENOTYPES OF THE ELATEKID BEETLES OF THE 

 WOKLD. 



By J. A. Hyslop, 

 Of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following paper is a catalogue of the genera of the Elateridae 

 of the world, designating the type species of each genus. Those who 

 have attempted taxonomic work in a biological complex of the mag- 

 nitude of the Elateridae, over 6,000 species for which about 600 gen- 

 eric names have been proposed, appreciate the function of genotype 

 fixation and recognize the value of collecting this information in 

 the form of a genotype list as a foundation work in the taxonomic 

 study of such a complex. 



The failure to recognize types of the several genera has led to the 

 present extreme confusion in the literature on the Elateridae. For 

 example, the genus Elater, as recognized by contemporary coleopter- 

 ists, is in reality the genus Ampedus, the insects now recognized 

 under the generic name Ludius being truly Elater. Ludius, on the 

 other hand, should be applied to the insects generally known as 

 Cori/mhites, and Oorymhites, as a generic name, disappears. The 

 two genera Adelocera and Lacon have been reversed in their appli- 

 cation, etc. 



After the separation from the Linnean genus Elater^ of Melasis by 

 Olivier, Eucnemis by Ahrens, Pyropliorus by Illiger, and Celyrio^ 

 Gerophytum^ and Hammonms by Latreille, the first writer to at- 

 tempt a division of this complex was Eschscholtz, who published his 

 work in Thon's Entomologisches Archiv,^ a work that is extremely 

 rare in this country. He was followed by Laporte de Castelnau, 

 Latreille, Germar, Erichson, LeConte, Horn, and the greatest monog- 

 rapher of this family, Ernest Candeze. 



The first to attempt a definite fixation of types in this group is 

 Westwood in the appendix to The Modern Classification of Insects, 

 1840. E. Blanchard, fixed types in Histoire Naturelle des Insectes 



Vol. 2, pt. 1, 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 58— No. 2353. 



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