WEST INDIAN MELOIDAE — SELANDER AND BOUSEMAN 199 



from the island of Trinidad. Five of the species of the Greater 

 Antilles are not present in the Lesser Antilles, but there are no species 

 in the latter group of islands that do not occur in the former. Appar- 

 ently the only island having endemic species is Cuba, with, three. 

 We do not propose to enter into a detailed comparison of the fauna of 

 the various islands because the small number of species involved 

 requires a more exact knowledge of the distribution of the fauna than 

 we now have. 



With respect to the origin of the West Indian meloid fauna, it is 

 well first to discuss what information is available concerning the 

 distributional and phylogenetic relationships of the individual species 

 before summarizing our conclusions. 



Meloe laevis and Cissites maculata not only occur in the Tropics of 

 the American mainland but have related species in this area. Prob- 

 ably, M. laevis reached the West Indies from Central America, and 

 C. maculata reached there from either Central or South America. 

 The distribution of M. laevis, if it actually corresponds to that shown 

 in table 1, presents an intriguing biogeographic problem. This 

 species ranges on the mainland from southwestern United States 

 south to Costa Rica, and is therefore evidently able to disperse with 

 facility and to adapt to a relatively wide range of ecological condi- 

 tions. On this account, the presence of this species in the West 

 Indies is not surprising, but it is quite enigmatic that within this area 

 the species should be apparently restricted to Hispaniola, which is 

 among the islands farthest removed from the mainland. 



Although Nemognatha punctulata is represented in the southeastern 

 United States by a population only slightly differentiated from the 

 West Indian population, the only species with which it shows a definite 

 relationship are South American in disbribution. The fact that it has 

 not been recorded in the West Indies south of Jamaica suggests that 

 it may not have reached the islands directly from South America but 

 rather through colonization from Central America by an ancestral 

 species that has since either become extinct in Central America or has 

 escaped the notice of collectors. 



The same reasoning applies to Tetraonyx quadrimaculata. This 

 species is replaced in continental South America (Brazil) by a very 

 similar species, T. bimaculata Klug. Like N. punctulata, T. quad- 

 rimaculata has a population in the southeastern United States but has 

 no known relatives there. On this basis the simplest explanation for 

 the distribution of the species is that it derived directly from a South 

 American stock and reached the United States from the West Indies. 

 The Cuban species T. cruciata and T. maestra represent local derivatives 

 of T. quadrimaculata . 



