226 FAMILY ELATERIDAE 



Alaus putridus, Candeze. 



Reference. — Candeze, Mon. Elater. vol. i, p. 233, pi. 4. f- 15 (1857). 



Habitat. — Salween River, Tenasserim. 



Tree Attacked.— Z)^?/6er^?a cultrata. Kowloon Island, Salween River, 

 Tenasserim. 



Beetle.— Elongate, rather narrow, with short antennae. A greyish mottled brown having 

 a great reseml^Iance to the bark of a tree ; the greyish appearance on living specimens is due 



to a grey bloom emanating from the grey pubes- 



Description. cence appearing in patches and spots on the 



dorsal surface ; this disappears after death, 



the colouring becoming various shades of brown or greyish brown ; two 



small black spots placed centrally on prothorax one on each side of the 



median line ; an elongate crescent-shaped black patch laterally half-way 



up elytra. Front of head deeply cleft on lower edge, punctate, and 



clothed with a dense pubescence. The anterior margin of prothorax is 



raised into two small teeth one on each side of a longitudinal median elevate 



/ ^-^^ \ hne which does not meet either margin. Disk highly pilnctate and 



Fk; 148 convex, the highest point just behind the two small teeth, from whence 



" ' it slopes backwards and laterally ; the outer posterior angles produced 



Candeze ' i'^^^ ^o"^" ^^"'^^ P°'"'^- ^cutellem elongate, elliptical. Elytra depressed 



Tenasserim. basally, the sides constricted to apex ; striate-punctate, the punctures 



rather far apart in even rows ; patches of white pubescence on surface ; 



apex truncate and toothed. Under-surface densely clothed with a short pubescence ; punctate. 



Length, 20 mm. to 37 mm. 



I took two specimens of this beetle in their pupating-chambers in the 

 wood of a dead Dalhergia cultrata tree, on Kowloon 

 Life History. Island, in the Salween River. The tree was only 



recently dead. The insects were fully mature and 

 about to issue. Other tunnels and chambers investigated were found to be 

 empty, the beetles having left. The beetles were taken on 10 March 1905, 

 the flight-time being evidently the first weeks of this month. The tunnel 

 into the wood made by the larva is circular in section, the length 3-8 in. 

 straight or curved, and inclined at an angle to the perpendicular. The end 

 of the tunnel is lined with chewed fibre for the whole of the portion in 

 which the larva lies when it pupates, the bottom being plugged with a mass 

 of the same material. The larva itself feeds either in the drying bark and 

 bast layer and outer sapwood, or it is predaceous upon other wood- and bark- 

 feeding insects, as the circular tunnel into the wood is only made after it has 

 attained its full size. 



The colouring of the beetle exactly resembles that of the bark of the 

 tree, the protective resemblance being almost complete. On the bark, 

 whilst ovipositing, the beetle would be extremely difficult to see. I can find 

 no other record of the life history of this insect. 



