446 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 117 



Type species. — Alycetophagus testaceus Hellwig (1792, p. 400). 

 Designated as M. testaceus Gyllenlial (1813, p. 401) by Chevrolat, 

 1847, in D'Orbigny's "Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle" 

 (vol. 9, p. 573). Gyllenlial himself credited the species to Hellwig; 

 Chevrolat and several other earlier workers were incorrect in assigning 

 it to Gyllenhal. 



Small, oblong oval, pale reddish brown, shining. Head short, 

 eyes globose, small (in North American species) to very large, an- 

 terior margin entire; terminal segment of maxillary palpus thick- 

 ened, oval, outer angle attenuate, apex truncate; antennae short, ex- 

 tending only to about middle of prothorax, terminal five segments 

 abruptly expanded to form loose club. Pronotum transverse. Elytra 

 rather short, convex, sides subparallel, lateral margins narrowly 

 expanded, strongly reflected, prominently beaded; surface estriate, 

 coarsely, shallowly, and densely punctured. Entire dorsal surface 

 clothed with short, very fine, yellowish setae, each arising from a 

 puncture. Epipleura abbreviated. 



The abruptly expanded, 5-segmented antennal club, the estriate 

 and confusedly punctured elytra clothed with fine yellowish setae, 

 and the entire anterior margms of the eyes are, in combination, 

 sufficient to distinguish Pentaphyllus from all other genera in the 

 tribe. 



The name Pentaphyllus was first corned by Megerle who cannot 

 receive credit for it because it was published in a sales catalog. 

 Dejean (1821) adopted the name in his catalog and validated it 

 by including P. testaceus (Hellwig) as one of its members. Thus 

 Dejean receives the authorship of the generic name, not Latreille, 

 who published 8 years later and did not include a single species. 



Pentaphyllus is worldwide in distribution. Gebien (1940) lists 

 31 species in the world fauna, most of which appear to be valid. 

 Only the two European species, P. testaceus (Hellwig) and P. chry- 

 someloides (Rossi), are at all well Iviiown. 



The genus Iphicorynus was erected by Jacquelin du Val for P. 

 chrysomeloides . This division is not without considerable merit, 

 since all of his characters do, in fact, distinguish this species from 

 the type species which agrees quite well with our two North Ameri- 

 can forms. In P. chrysomeloides, the epipleura are abruptly ab- 

 breviated at a considerable distance from the apices of the elytra, 

 the tibiae are all slightly expanded apically, the first segment of 

 the hindtarsus is shorter than the two following combined and 

 notably shorter than the last, and the eyes are large and narrowly 

 separated ventrally. However, since it falls well within the generic 

 limits as defined above, it sliall be considered a member of Penta- 



