1908.] Catalogue of the Coleoptera of South Africa. G35 



elytra more deeply and roughly punctate with the intervals more 

 convex or even tectiform, but it is the shape and position of the 

 scutellum which characterises this genus, which, so far as I know, 

 is represented in Africa by one species occurring in Somaliland, and 

 by two in the South African Region. 



Athyreus rhodesianus, n. sp 

 Pi. XL VIII., figs. 13, 14. 

 Black, shiny, antennae pale rlavous ; underside clothed with a 

 long, very dense, greyish flavescent pubescence ; mandibles with 

 two triangular lateral laminate processes on each side, apex of left 

 one single, hooked, that of right bifid; labrum curved at apex, 

 clypeus with a conical tooth at the very apex, straight there, the base 

 of the conical tooth connected with the centre of the anterior apical 

 carina, which is triangularly dentate on each side, and slants sub- 

 obliquely to the base of the genge, which are narrowly and sharply 

 triangular with the apex reflexed ; at the back of this ridge is a 

 median, broad, fairly deep depression, the surface is coarsely sub- 

 scabrose punctate, the punctures are not set close to each other, and 

 each bears a short hair ; prothorax strongly declivous and having a 

 deep, anterior excavation reaching from the apex to about the 

 median part, strongly sloping and edged on each side by a sharp 

 ridge, truncate in front, and bi-sinuate in the upper part ; on the 

 sides and equi-distant from the lateral ridge of the anterior excava- 

 tion and from the very vertical basal carinate part is a vertical 

 slightly sinuate ridge beginning at about one half of the height and 

 reaching the lateral margin ; the median part of the apex, is 

 distinctly triangularly tuberculated, and from there to the base runs 

 a narrow but deep sulcus, the posterior part is broadly depressed on 

 each side of that median groove ; the surface is covered with deep 

 punctures, bearing each a small hair, these punctures are more 

 closely set in the excavation and laterally, and on each side of the 

 base there is above the margin an agglomeration of longer hairs ; 

 elytra not longer than the prothorax, deeply but somewhat irregu- 

 larly striate punctate, with the intervals carinulate costate, each 

 puncture in the striae bears a minute greyish hair ; pygidium closely 

 and somewhat coarsely punctate and densely pubescent ; abdomen 

 aciculate ; outer face of femora punctate but with the median part 

 smooth ; pectus very closely and deeply punctate ; anterior tibiae 

 quadri-dentate. 



Length 10 mm., width 5h mm. 



Hab. Southern Rhodesia (neighbourhood of Salisbury). 



