636 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. tol.51. 



Group Vm (EPILACHNINI). 



Plate 120 and plate 121, figs. 31a, 6. 



The following genera and species of this group are represented in 

 the United States National Museum: Epilachna corrupta Mulsant 

 (Mexico, Colorado, Panama), Epilachna horealis Fabricius (N. Amer.), 

 Lasia glohosa Schneider (Denmark) and Cynegetis impunctata Lin- 

 naeus (Denmark). 



This group is allied to the Coccinellini, having like this tribe an 

 unarmed spiracle-bearing extension from the terga of mesothorax and 

 metathorax. The protopleural portion of the extension is sharply 

 defined by the tergo-pleural and the sterno-pleural sutures, which 

 separates the portion respectively from the alar area and the pre- 

 sternum. The development of long, more or less conspicuously 

 branched spines on all the segments is a speciahzation, which is only 

 indicated in the Coccinellini; on the ventral areas small tubercles are 

 present in the same distribution, number and development, as in the 

 Coccinellini. In the form of the hypopharyngeal bridge and of the 

 mandibles, this group, however, occupies as already mentioned (page 

 628) an isolated position among all Coccinellid larvae. It is note- 

 worthy that the anterior portion of the head and the development of 

 antennae and palpi also exhibit special characters; finally an epi- 

 cranial suture is present, a character, which, outside this group, only 

 occurs in the three closely related genera, Chilocorus, Egius, and Orcus. 



The dorsal side of the prothorax is well chitinized and has on each 

 side two large spines with an intervening small spine; in Cynegetis 

 a small spine is developed from the small prothoracic pleural lobe. 

 The scutal areas of thorax and abdomen, the alar areas of mesothorax 

 and metathorax as well as the corresponding spiracular areas of the 

 abdominal segments and the pleural lobes of both the thoracic and 

 the abdominal segments aU carry a flat, thick sclerite with a long 

 setiferous spine. The first abdominal spiracle is placed much more 

 dorsally than on the other abdominal segments. This is especially 

 so in Cynegetis. The hypopharyngeal bridge is lameUiform, slightly 

 chitinized, in Epilachna with only a dark chitinous Une along the pos- 

 terior margin (fig. 16, pi. 120), and in Cynegetis even without that mar- 

 ginal thickening; there are no hard-walled lateral cavities in the 

 bridge, and the grinding and squeezing mechanism, which is found in 

 all the carnivorous CoccinelUd larvae, is therefore totally lacking in 

 the larvae of this herbivorous tribe. The mandible (fig. 21, pi. 120) is 

 strongly chitinized at the base; it is not so broad as in the other 

 groups and it has no molar-shaped portion. The retinaculum is not 

 present in its normal place; as it, however, is strongly developed in 

 the allied group Coccinellini, it is possible that it really is represented 

 by the lower teeth of the unusually multidentate apex of the mandible. 



