10 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 243 



Lacebugs are no new creations. According to the geological time 

 calendar, the petrified forms found in stone (pi. 35) and moulds engulfed in 

 amber (pi. 3) represent bygone species that lived many million years ago. 

 No present-day lacebug is also known as a fossil. As the illustrations 

 depict, the extinct species as well as the forms living today wore topcoats 

 of living lace. Although specifically different from the living forms, the 

 zoolithic Phatnoma baltica (pi. 3) and Dictyla veterna (pi. 35) are typically 

 members of these respective genera that were erected to hold living species 

 (pis. 2, 7). Both of the genera are represented today by members of modern 

 species in the Old and New Worlds. 



The present picture of the fossil tingids, because of the imperfect state 

 of our knowledge, is much confused and in need of specific and generic 

 revision. Four forms, each described simply as " Tingis sp." are without triv- 

 ial names and probably do not even belong to this genus. Bachofen- 

 Echt (1949, fig. 160) published an excellent photograph of an unidentified 

 amber lacebug which may be Phatnoma baltica Drake (1950) described in 

 Baltic amber. 



The lacebug species common to the Old and New Worlds are numerically 

 low, totaling only nine species. A digest of the literature and studies of 

 numerous collections have so far not revealed evidences of any natural 

 faunal exchange through migration in either direction. Apparently, all 

 the tingid species shared similarly between the two worlds made the sea 

 voyage by ships of various kinds in transoceanic commerce. Paleontologic 

 and chorologic data disclose no evidences of the so-called Amphiatlantic or 

 Westarctic distribution in the Tingidae, and collections from eastern 

 Siberia and northwestern North America (Alaska and Canada) have not 

 as yet disclosed a single species common in these regions, even among the 

 muscicolous genus Acalypta. The members of the latter genus are among 

 the northernmost Tingidae in these regions. Apparently, perhaps, even 

 in the present era, the Bering Strait plus unfavorable biotic factors such 

 as low temperature and floral composition have formed a natural barrier 

 for tingids between the Asian and North American continents. 



Ballast materials, used quite extensively on sailing vessels in the colonial 

 times, played a significant role in the transportation and introduction of 

 certain kinds of insects and other invertebrates as well as many plants into 

 North America from Europe (Lindroth, 1957). However, our studies of 

 the tingifauna collected at various times in the vicinity of ballast-dumping 

 sites near old seaports along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North 

 America indicate that earthen and other sorts of ballast seem to have 

 played no findable part in the hemispheric exchange of Tingidae. 



Caloloma uhleri Drake and Bruner is an Australian indigene originally 

 described from the West Indies (Antigua, Lesser Antilles). Specimens 

 received recently from the Windward Islands (Saint Vincent) show that 

 this lacebug has become established in the West Indies. From its native 



