CHARIESTERUS AND ITS NEOTROPICAL RELATIVES 

 (COREID.E HETEROPTERA). 



S. B. Fracker, Madison, Wis. 



The Squash-bug family contains an unusually large pro- 

 portion of insects of bizarre form and possessing strange struc- 

 tures. Expanded or curved tibiae, swollen and spinose femors,. 

 and flattened or clavate antennal joints seem to be the rule 

 rather than the exception. 



Among the more modest of the peculiar species are those of 

 the tribe Chariesterini, a group whose members possess a 

 flattened spatulate expansion of the third antennal segment 

 and obliquely truncate, usually spinose, antenniferous tubercles. 

 Chariesterus antennator, the most northern member of the 

 tribe, is well known from New Jersey and Iowa to the Gulf 

 of Mexico. A new species from California is described below, 

 whose peculiarly shaped pronotum makes it one of the most 

 remarkable of the Coreidae. 



■ The tribe is confined to the western hemisphere and includes 

 three genera: Plapigus, Staluptus, and Chariesterus. 



Plapigiis now contains seven or eight described species, all 

 South American except circiimcinctiis Stal from Mexico. This is 

 a black form, with margins of pronotum, corium, and abdomen 

 flavescent, a distinct callosity behind the eye, tibiae with 

 testaceous annulus, and expansion of third antennal segment 

 longer than broad. The internal angle of each antenniferous 

 tubercle is acute, and the first segment of the antennae sub- 

 clavate; the pronotal margins are entire, and the humeri each 

 armed with a single long slender spine. 



Staluptus marginalis Burmeister, according to the original 

 description, is black, with unarmed posterior femora, which are 

 fulvous at base, scarcely dilated third antennal segment, and 

 brown venter and femora. It was described from Mexico. 



• The species of Chariesterus, seven in number, are more 

 widely distributed than other members of the tribe, ranging 

 throughout both continents. In this genus the first antennal 

 segment is parallel-sided, though sometimes slightly broader 



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