iseo.j 253 



NOTE ON DISC OPUS, A GENUS OF SOUTH AMEEICAN LONGICOENS, 

 FAMILY LAMIIDM. 



BT H. W. BATES, F.L.S. 



Discopics is one of the numerous genera of conspicuous and 

 beautiful insects characteristic of the fauna of the Eastern slopes of 

 the Andes, a few degrees north and south of the equator, i. e., from 

 New Granada to about the middle of Peru. The range of the genus, 

 like that of many genera of butterflies of this region, extends some few 

 hundred miles down the plains of the Amazons, but without reaching 

 so far eastward as the confluence of the Rio Negro. "Within its area 

 it is represented in the different river valleys by a number of similar 

 species, some of which scarcely rise to the distinction of more than 

 local forms or races. The genus is allied to the European Acantlio- 

 deres, differing chiefly by the antennse being ornamented, on the third 

 joint, by a cylindrical brush of silky hairs, and by the elytra having a 

 strongly-elevated rib down the middle of each, from base to apex. 

 The name (suggested by the pair of brushes which the insects seem to 

 bear on their antennae) was proposed by M. J. Thomson, who first 

 separated these insects ivom AcantJwderes. The genus, as will be seen 

 in the following enumeration, has been eni'iched by the researches of 

 Mr. C. Buckley, in Ecuador, but the species described were mostly the 

 fruits of his first journey. 



1. Discopus sPECTABiLis, Bates, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Novem- 

 ber, 1861, p. 476 (Acanthoderes). Hab., Ega, Upper Amazons. Dis- 

 tinguished by its rich black colour, and the narrow and interrupted 

 ashy-white sutural vitta, without oblique belt of the same colour across 

 the middle of the elytra. 



2. D. EQUES, n. sp. — Paullo major, elytris apice latius et recfius 



truncatis : fusciis, antennis castaneis, scopis fusco-casfaneis : elytris 



mactilis parvis, segreqatis,fuJvo-cinereis, viz. una utrinque pone scutel- 



lum, duahus medianis oblique positis, altera supra unguium apicalem, 



guttis autem nonnullis suturalibus versus apicem. 



Long. 9 lin., ^ $ . 

 Hab. : Chanchamoyo, Peru (Dr. Thamm). 



Agrees with D. spcctahilis in wanting the median oblique cinereous 



