H. C. FALL 
67 
SHORT STUDIES IN THE MALACHIIDAE 
(COLEOPTERA) 
BY H. C. FALL 
The types of all new species described in the following pages 
are males, and, unless otherwise stated, all are in the collection 
of the writer. 
TANAOPS LeConte 
This genus was established by LeConte, in 1859, for two 
California species — ahdominalis and longiceps — the latter having 
been described seven years previously as a Malachius. Both 
LeConte, at this time, and Horn, in his later Synopsis of the 
Malachiidae (1872), note certain epistomal and ventral differ- 
ences in these two species, but a careful examination of the types, 
together with the more extensive material in my own cabinet, 
convinces me that the supposed differences are wholly non-exis- 
tent. The epistomal structure in ahdominalis and longiceps is 
virtually identical, being seemingly membranous in front, be- 
coming corneous posteriorly; while the ventral pits or impres- 
sions in the males do not differ appreciably in the two species. 
Moreover these characters are practically constant in all the new 
species to be herein described. 
The two most important generic characters of Tanaops are 
sexual in nature. In the male the basal two joints of the front 
tarsi are a little enlarged, the second produced a short distance 
over the third, but not lobed as in Attains; wliile the fourth and 
fifth ventrals are bifoveate. The sixth segment is also im- 
pressed and emarginate but the structure is frequently not 
clearly visible. The pits or excavations of the fourth and fifth 
segments are more or less transverse and subcontiguous on the 
median line, and in one species — coelestinus — they coalesce into a 
single large pit on each of these segments. None of our true 
Attains already described have the male ventral pits, but one or 
two undescribed species in my collection, which by the lobed 
second joint of the male front tarsi must be referred to Attains, 
show also the male ventral pits in a somewhat modified form. 
The very elongate head in the two species known to LeConte w’as 
TKANS. AM. ENT. 80C., XLIII. 
