1902.] Catalogue of the Colcoptcra of South Africa. 817 



Platychelus hoplioides, Burm., 

 Handb. d. Entomol., iv., 1, p. 151. 



Male : Black, with a faint iBneous tinge, elytra either fuscous, 

 dark chestnut, or reddish brown, but with a slight metalhc tinge, 

 clypeus straight at the apex but with the outer angles slightly 

 rounded ; head granulose ; prothorax very closely scabrose except 

 in the median posterior part, where the punctures are rounder and 

 clothed with a very dense, slightly flavescent, or sometimes fulvous, 

 erect pubescence ; scutellum clothed with a long, appressed pubes- 

 cence ; elytra faintly bi-striate on each side, covered with very 

 closely set scabose punctures each bearing an appressed greyish 

 hair forming a dense pubescence ; pygidial part and abdomen also 

 similarly punctured and equally pubescent ; pectus villose ; anterior 

 tibiae bi-dentate outwardly, all the claws double, unequal, and 

 cleft. 



Female : Like the male, and only recognisable by the shape of the 

 pygidium which is a little convex, and vertical ; generally the 

 appressed pubescence on the elytra is not quite so dense as in 

 the male, and the clypeus is parabolic. 



Length 7-10 mm. ; width 3J-5| mm. 



I never found this species on flowers, but always dragging itself 

 on the ground. 



Hab. Cape Colony (Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Malmesbury). 



Platychelus caffee, Bohem., 

 Insect. Caffrar., ii., p. 155. 



Male : Black, with a faint metallic tinge plainer on the prothorax, 

 and moderately shining ; elytra with a faint browaaish tinge ; clypeus 

 a little attenuate laterally and much rounded, almost orbicular, the 

 margin is a little reflexed, it is, like the head, very rugose, and the 

 latter is hairy ; prothorax scabrose in the interior part and sides, 

 punctate in the discoidal posterior part, densely pubescent, the 

 pubescence long, erect, and greyish ; elytra normally sinuate and 

 attenuate laterally, bi-impressed longitudinally on each side, deeply 

 and somewhat closely punctate and clothed with an equal, some- 

 what dense fuscous pubescence ; pygidial part, abdomen, pectus, 

 and hind legs clothed with a similar pubescence which is not, how- 

 ever, very dense ; anterior legs bi-dentate. Boheman states that the 

 anterior tibiie are tri-dentate, but in his type, as also in my co-type, 

 they are as mentioned above. 



Length oh mm. ; width 2^ mm. 



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