PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



by the 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Vol. 108 Washington: 1958 No. 3395 



A REVIEW OF SOME GALERUCINE BEETLES WITH EXCISED 

 MIDDLE TIBIAE IN THE MALE 



By Doris H. Blake 



Unlike the Alticini, many of the Galerucini do not have outstanding 

 characters. This is particularly true of such genera as Diabrotica, 

 Neobrotica, and Luperodes, and has led to many really diverse beetles 

 being included under these generic names. Yet any attempt to 

 create a better classification is bound to result in a somewhat artificial 

 arrangement because these beetle groups overlap in certain peculiari- 

 ties and in other ways possess traits common to most Galerucini. 

 There is one approach that can be used, which Horn (1893, p. 124) 

 suggests when he Tem&rks concerning Phyllecthrus: "Too many genera 

 of Galerucini have been described from uniques without any pub- 

 lished reference to sexual peculiarities which are often a guide to rela- 

 tionships when other characters cause doubt by their double indication." 



There is a somewhat miscellaneous series of Galerucine beetles in 

 which the male character is a cut-out area on the inner margin near 

 the apex of the middle tibiae similar to the emargination in the front 

 tibiae of Carabidae. Some of these beetles have been allocated to 

 that all-embracing genus, Diabrotica, in spite of not having bifid 

 claws, others to Neobrotica, others to Phyllecthrus and Oroetes, and I 



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