8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 123 



is small but distinct and black. The mesonotum is mostly or wholly 

 yellow to golden pilose, with a prominent median vitta, visible clearly 

 without magnification, extending from the suture to a polished area 

 on the anterior margin; the pile adjacent to this vitta is usually a pale 

 yellow although in some specimens, particularly from the southern 

 part of the range of the species (Texas and Mexico), the vitta is 

 margined on each side by a distinct vitta of black hairs. The distri- 

 butional pattern cannot, however, be interpreted as defining a sub- 

 species since no exact geographic area is defined by it; indeed, both 

 types occur in a series collected by R. H. and L. D. Beamer at Gidd- 

 ings, Tex. A tendency toward reddening of the abdomen in the 

 male, particularly in Texan and Mexican specimens, is noticeable. 

 The larger part of the abdomen is clothed with long, curved, ap- 

 pressed yellow to golden pile; this becomes less conspicuous in the 

 more southern specimens. The male genitalia are similar to those 

 of H. melanderi but the dististyle (fig. 9) has a different shape; its 

 inner apical margin is always concave, sometimes deeply so, with a 

 shoulder although the exact outline is subject to some variation; from 

 lateral view the apex of the dististyle is angular in apical outline, 

 forming an acute or right angle. 



Geographical distribution (fig. 11): most or all of Kansas, except 

 possibly the extreme eastern part, westward through Colorado to 

 the front range of the Rocky Mountains and southward across 

 Oklahoma and central Texas into northeastern Mexico. We have 

 records from the following Mexican localities: Coahuila: Hermanas; 

 Nuevo Leon: Monterrey, Vallecillo; Tamaulipas: Ciudad Victoria. 



Hermetia melanderi James and Wirth, new species 



Figures 6, 8, 11 



Close to H. chrysopila, from which it may best be differentiated by 

 the more limited amount of golden pile on the poterior margin of 

 the second tergum; viewed from behind or medially, this pile is 

 limited to a narrow patch, somewhat broadened sublaterally, on 

 each side of the median line but separated from the whitish antero- 

 lateral pile of this tergum by a broad area of black pile, whereas 

 in H. chrysopila these areas of golden pile extend in the form of a 

 broad triangle almost to the base of the tergum. Hermetia melanderi 

 can be separated from H. chrysopila, with exceptions as noted under 

 the discussion of that species, by the more extensive black pile of the 

 mesonotum, which includes a narrow vitta on each side of and isolating 

 the presutural golden vitta and which takes in the anterior two-thirds 

 of the postscutum. Also, in H. melanderi the eye pilosity is denser 

 and longer than in H. chrysopila. 



