166 Journal New York Entomological Society. [Voi. xii. 



Class I, HEXAPODA. 



Order II. COLEOPTERA. 



A SPECIES OF THE TENEBRIONID GENUS 

 LATHETICUS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



By F. H. Chittenden, Sc.D., 

 Washington, D. C. 



For many years there were present in the British Museum speci- 

 mens of an unidentified genus of Tenebrionidse. The species awaited 

 description until the year iSSo, when Mr. C. O. Waterhouse ventured 

 its characterization as Latheticus oryzcB in Volume V of the Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History (fifth ser., pp. 147-148). 



March 3, 1897, the late H. G. Hubbard collected in the Colorado 

 desert, at Indio, in Riverside county, in southern California, a series 

 of a species at once recognizable as related to L. oryzae both by the 

 description and the illustration published in "Aid to the Classifica- 

 tion of Insects " (Plate 15). A brief notice of this was given by Mr. 

 E. A. Schwarz before the Entomological Society of Washington, May 

 13, 1897 (Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash., Vol. IV, p. 187). Other speci- 

 mens were reared in 1902 by Messrs. H. S. Barber and E. A. Schwarz 

 from dead mesquite branches at Hot Springs, Yavapai county, Arizona. 



It is remarkable that an American species of this genus should 

 exist while no other than the oriental form which has hitherto repre- 

 sented the genus has been discovered. It serves to accentuate the 

 Asiatic character of the fauna of the arid region of southwestern North 

 America. 



Specimens of Z. oryzcE taken from a London granary have been 

 kindly furnished by Mr. G. C. Champion for comparison. 



Before proceeding to its description Waterhouse' s definition of 

 the genus may be repeated as it is published where not accessible to 

 many American collectors. 



Genus LATHETICUS Waterhouse, 1880. 



General form of Triboliunt. Mentum transverse, the anterior angles rounded, 

 the front margin gently emarginate in the middle, the ligula not much projecting, 

 transverse, emarginate in the middle ; the labial palpi short, the apical joint very 

 large, one third longer than broad, subparallel (but narrowed at the base), truncate 

 at the apex. The inner lobe of the maxillee terminating in a very slender, acute hook, 



