PENTODON . 303 



two minute tubercles. The mandible is trilobate at the outer 

 edge. Maxilla rather sleuder, bifid at the end, with two or three 

 inferior teeth. Mentum moderately long, feebly notched in front. 

 Prosternal process erect and very hairy. Pronotum subglobose 

 and strongly punctured. Elytra closely and irregularly punctured, 

 sometimes with inconspicuous striae, Stridulatory files absent, or 

 coarse and incomplete. Legs stout, the front tibia armed with 

 three strong teeth and two or three secondary denticles ; the hind 

 tibia not flattened, but truncate at the end and fringed with 

 numerous close short spines. Tarsi short, the basal joint of the 

 hind tarsus flattened and triangular. 



The sexes are alike. 



This genus differs from Alissonotum by its rounder clypeus, the 

 irregularly punctured elytra and the absence or partial atrophy of 

 the stridulatory files. It is essentially Pala^arctic in its distribution, 

 and the new species here described from Bengal is abnormal in its 

 appearance as well as its habitat and is only provisionally assigned 

 to the genus. 



Key to the Sjoecies. 



1 (2) Froutal carina bearing a small tubercle iu [p. .303. 



the middle : elytra of moderate leugth , . bispinifrons, Reitter, 



2 (1) Frontal carina without a tubercle : elytra [p. 304. 



very short hengalense, sp. n., 



277. Pentodon bispinifrons. 



Pentodon bispinifrons, Heitte?;* Deutsche Ent. Zeitschr. 1894, p. 45. 



Black and moderately shining, reddish beneath, broadly oval and 

 very convex. The head is densely rugose and the clypeus rather 

 elliptical, with the sides contracted but a little rounded, and the 

 front margin armed with two acute reflexed teeth. There is a 

 slight transverse carina, a little angulated at the middle, where it 

 bears a small rather sharp tubercle. The pronotum is strongly 

 and rather thickly punctured, with an imperfect smooth longi- 

 tudinal line at the middle ; the sides are strongly and uniformly 

 curved and the hind angles completely rounded off. The eh/tra 

 are thickly and almost rugosely, but not very coarsely, punctured, 

 with a deep sutural stria and three pairs of punctured striae, the 

 intervening spaces being broad. The projjygidium is finely punc- 

 tured and setose, and has a pair of coarse and more or less im- 

 perfect stridulatory files, the pygidium being closely punctured at 

 the base and feebly at the apex. The lower surface is smooth 

 except at the sides. 



Leifigth 16-22 mm. ; breadth 9-12 mm. 



Punjab: ^annu {Br. PennelT); Baluchistan; Sind : Karachi; 

 Persia ; Ttjekestan. 



Type in the Vienna Museum ; cotype in the British Museum. 



