THE AMERICAN MOTHS OF THE GENUS DIATRAEA 



AND ALLIES 



By Harrison G. Dyar 



Custodian of Lepidoptera, United States National Museum 



and 



Carl Heinrich 



Of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture 



INTRODUCTION 



The genus Diatraea contains a considerable number of species of 

 moths, and is distributed throughout the world, especially in the 

 tropical portions. The larvae are borers in the stems of various 

 grasses, and several species have attracted attention from an economic 

 point of view by their depredations upon sugar cane and Indian corn. 



We consider here the American species only ; but we have not con- 

 fined ourselves strictly to the limits of the genus Diatraeco. This 

 genus belongs to the family Pyralidae, subfamily Crambinae, and to 

 that section of the subfamily in which vein 7 of the fore wing arises 

 from the discal cell. Among the genera so characterized are some in 

 which vein 11 of the fore wing anastomoses with vein 12, which group 

 includes Diatraea; we herewith treat this whole group, although 

 recognizing that it is not a natural one, the anastomosing of veins 

 11 and 12 having occurred twice in different lines of descent. In 

 addition to these, we include observations on certain more distantly 

 related forms whose position requires correcting, or the larvae of 

 which have been reported from cane or corn. 



Ten genera and 56 species are treated in this paper, of which 5 

 genera and 12 species are described as new. Ten names are added 

 to the synonymy and three species described in Diatraea are unrecog- 

 nized and omitted from our keys. They are briefly treated at the 

 end of the paper. Five species which have been described in or 

 referred to Diatraea we are transferring to other genera. 



No. 2691— Proceedings U- S. National Museum, Vol. 71, Art. 19 



48189—27 1 1 



