306 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. iis 



faintly brown. Prothorax not so long as wide with nearly straight 

 sides and transverse sulcus across the pronotum, shining, finely punc- 

 tate, pale yellow brown. Scutellum brown or piceous. Elytra with 

 a small costa running down from humerus, sometimes traces of other 

 lateral costae; finely punctate and finely alutaceous, pale yellow brown 

 with variable pale reddish brown, sometimes piceous, each elytron 

 with markings consisting of a spot on the humerus, another on the 

 side below this and another on the side near the apex, two median 

 ones, one before and the other after the middle; these last spots often 

 absent in part or coalescing along the side, and forming short vittae. 

 Body beneath and legs entirely pale, a spine on middle and hind tibiae, 

 front tibiae of the male enlarged. Length 5.3-6.8 mm.; width 

 2.4-2.9 mm. 



Type, male; one paratype; both in MCZ, from Caracas, Venezuela. 



Remarks : In the Bowditch collection are four specimens, two from 

 Caracas, one from San Esteban, collected by E. Simon, and one with 

 no locality label. These are undoubtedly the specimens named by 

 Jacoby in his original description, as A^^. dimidiaticornis ; even the 

 markings correspond with the variety having "spots or streaks." 

 There are no specimens from Venezuela in the British Museum col- 

 lection, but there is a male from Colombia, which is labelled by 

 Jacoby as Diabrotica piceolimbata Baly ; however it does not correspond 

 with Baly's description of piceolimbata, and Jacoby 's label should be 

 disregarded. In the U.S. National Museum are other specimens of 

 this species from Caracas collected by A. J. C. Rojas, and specimens 

 from El Valle (near Caracas) collected by C.H. Ballou on Paponax 

 and Crescentia cujete. There is a great variation in the two series in 

 the elytral markings in that the spots frequently are elongated and 

 coalesce, forming short vittae along the side, in the middle, and 

 below the scutellum along the suture. The marldngs usually pale 

 reddish brown become piceous brown in some darker specimens. The 

 beetles differ from N. ebraea in having a dark piceous or brown occiput. 

 In the latter species there is only a middle dark spot on the vertex. 



Neohrotica praeclara (Weise) 



Figure 47 



Cerotoma praeclara Weise, Zool. Jahrb., suppl. 16, pp. 15-16, 1929. 

 Neohrotica dimidiaticornis praeclara. — Bechyne, Ent. Arb. Mus. G. Frey, vol. 7, 

 no. 1, p. 316, 1956. 



About 5.5 mm. in length, elongate oblong oval, feebly shining, 

 alutaceous, the elytra strongly and densely punctate with a tendency 

 to being geminate striate between the feeble costae, pale yellow, the 



