! 



376 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 117 



picea or none as in N. hoffmannseggi and A^. inermis. In one species 

 from British Honduras, apparently undescribed, both sexes lack fron- 

 tal horns entirely, but the males have enormously developed clypeal 

 horns. 



Frontal horns are also found in some species of Platydema, but in 

 that genus they are usually directed sharply forward while in Neomida 

 they are porrect or even directed posteriorly over the pronotum. 

 The greater length of the basal segment of the hindtarsus in horned 

 members of Platydema will readily exclude them from Neomida. 



In size, species of Neomida vary from less than 2 mm. (e.g., N. 

 suilla) to almost 10 mm, (e.g., N. lateralis (Bates)). 



Despite the great diversity of form in a number of morphological 

 characters exhibited by members of this genus, they form a natural 

 group which at present defies further division. 



Most of these characters which look at first glance like good generic 

 differences are found, when traced through the various species, to 

 cut across "generic" limits or to grade imperceptibly from one "genus" 

 into another. 



It is perhaps a tribute to the general similarity of habitus ex- 

 pressed by the species of Neomida that we are not encumbered by a 

 number of generic and subgeneric names and a longer list of synonym.s, 

 despite the number of coleopterists who have contributed new species. 



It is regrettable that the well-known and firmly established name 

 Hoplocephala must fall and be replaced by the misused and confusmg 

 appellation Neomida. This must be done, however, since Neomida 

 was erected by Latreille (1829) for the validly described Ips haemor- 

 rhoidalis Fabricius, 2 years before Laporte and Brulle (1831) de- 

 scribed Hoplocephala. Arrhenoplita (Kirby, 1837) is a primary ob- 

 jective synonym and contained only hicornis (Fabricius). LeConte 

 (1866) separated his genus Evoplus from Hoplocephala by the deep 

 postocular pits promment in Jerruginea (LeConte) but not distinctive 

 enough to warrant a generic separation. This character is equally 

 prominent in N. lateralis (Bates) and N. lecontei (Bates). 



The name Neomida (not Latreille) has been applied to several 

 quite different taxonomic units. Motschoulsky (1873) reserved it 

 for the duU, lustreless species of Platydema, while Mulsant (1854) 

 came close to using it m the present sense. He applied the name to 

 a subgenus of Hoplocephala to con tarn one European species, hi- 

 tuherculata Olivier, ironically leaving the tj'^pe species, haemorrhoi- 

 dalis, in the subgenus Hoplocephala. 



The genus Neomida is represented in the world fauna by at least 

 58 species. Twenty-four of these are from the Old World (Japan, 

 China, Europe, India, Austraha, Africa, Madagascar, and islands of 

 the South Pacific). Thirty -four have been described from the New 



