FAMILY PLATYPODIDAE 625 



Beetle. — Stout, robust, short, abruptly truncate posteriorly. Dark brown, apical half of 

 elytra black and set with i^olden yellow stiff short hairs. Head with front flat, dull, punctate- 

 rugose, finely reticulate between the eyes ; club of antennae not articu- 

 Description. late. Frothorax square, with a longitudinal median carina, a small 



oval rugose patch on each side in front of carina, and scattered 

 largish punctures. Elytra short, widened behind, with a strongly punctured sutural furrow, 

 the striae weak and multi-punctate, the intervals sub-convex, with a double row of fine points 

 bearing inclined hairs. Declivity oblique, sub-circular, with dull furrows, the intervals with 

 double rows of spiny granules. Abdominal segments densely punctate-rugose. Posterior 

 trochanters punctate, each terminated with a double spine. Length, 3.7 mm. PI. Ix, fig. 8, 

 shows this insect. The curious short squat thorax and elytra give a characteristic appearance 

 to this species. 



This is a common beetle in freshly felled sal-trees in the latter half of 



May. It was taken in numbers from a green tree 



Life History. felled in the Kachugaon forests on 15 May igo6 and 



also from other felled green trees. In all cases it had 



attacked the trees after they had been felled. It was, however, also cut 



out of green sickly dying standing trees. The insect evidently only attacks 



green wood, and is not to be found in dead wood. 



The beetle was ovipositing in the latter half of May, the beetles then 

 taken being probably those of the first generation of the year laying the 

 eggs of a second. The egg-gallery may go in through the bark at a slight 

 angle, but on reaching the sapwood the beetle tunnels straight down into 

 the heart-wood. There are no offset galleries to the main one, the eggs 

 being laid at the bottom of this latter. The larvae on hatching out of the 

 eggs appear to feed upon fungi lining the walls of the egg-gallery, since in 

 old tunnels examined there was no evidence of any larval gallery or tunnel 

 eaten in the wood. 



The beetle will attack the wood with the bark on or off, so that barking 

 the felled tree is no protection against it. It enters a log with as much 

 facility at a cut end as by boring down through the bark. This habit is of 

 considerable interest and importance, since other species I have examined, 

 as detailed above, would appear to require the bark on the stem as a 

 condition of attack. The presence of this platypid is easily recog- 

 nizable, as the particles of wood eaten out in making the gallery are 

 pushed up the tunnel and ejected from the mouth of it either in the 

 form of little heaps of wood-dust or, more usually, as little cylindrical 

 wood masses which project upwards out of the bark. The colour of these 

 cylinders will at once tell the observer how deep the beetle has got into 

 the wood. 



When numerous this platypid badly pin-holes freshh' felled sal-trees, 

 standmg sickly trees, and freshly sawn logs lying in the forest. For this 

 reason felled trees should be converted and removed from the forest as soon 

 as possible. 



Tillioera assamensis, Steb. (p. 187), is predaceous upon this platypid. 

 It is described on p. 486. 



9003 R R 



