THE NEUROPTEROUS GENUS PALPARES. 



By Nathan Banks. 



To the genus Palpares belongs the most magnificent of the 

 Neuropterous insects. Their large size and contrasting mark- 

 ings has attracted even the collector of butterflies so that now a 

 considerable amount of material exists in the various museums, 

 a much more representative collection than any other group 

 of exotic Neuroptera. 



Having recently seen many of the collections and having a 

 number of species in my own, I have endeavored to prepare a 

 table with such notes as may be useful in identifying the var- 

 ious species. 



Africa is the home of the genus, two species occur in Southern 

 Europe, several in India and Persia, and one has been taken in 

 the Madeira Islands. Elsewhere there are none, nor even a 

 closely allied genus. 



Several attempts have been made to divide the genus. 

 Hagen made Stenares for those species in which the costal cells 

 were crossed. This character is often variable in development, 

 in many Myrmeleonidae, but in Palpares it appears to be more 

 constant; the species of Stenares always have two rows of cells 

 for most of the costal length, while in the true Palpares it is 

 rare to find even one cell crossed. Panexis was created by 

 Hagen for certain small, broad-winged species, the type of 

 which has a thickened subcosta. Until better characters are 

 given, it is best to keep Panexis as only a subgenus. 



McLachlan proposed to divide both Palpares and Stenares 

 according to whether the outer margin of the wings were strongly 

 sinuated or not. Thus Symmathetes is for species of Palpares 

 with sinuated margin and Crambomorphus is for those Stenares 

 with a sinuated margin. However as we know- more species of 

 Palpares it becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether the 

 margin is strongly sinuated or not; thus P. amitinus, P. in- 

 sularis, P. inclemens and P. latipennis all have the margin 

 plainly sinuated, and other species show this character in a 

 slight degree. Lately Navas has proposed various new genera. 

 Nosa for P. tigris which has apparently two radial sectors, 

 although in reality it has no more longitudinal veins than 

 other Alyrmeleonidae. P. tigris is so closely related by other 

 characters to species with but one radial sector that I cannot 



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