HUNGERFORD: AQUATIC HEMIPTERA. AT 
G. Oculatus Fabr. 1798. 
Fabricius, Ent. Syst. Suppl. p. 525. 
G. oculatus is the only one recorded as general in distribution. The 
others are neotropical. This widely distributed species has been taken 
in Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, 
Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Carolina, District of Columbia, 
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. The original de- 
scription of this species is very short and inadequate. Uhler says: 
Our Galgulus oculatus is a variously tinted chunk of insect entity, 
thick in front, horizontal, and gradually thinning towards the bluntly 
curved posterior end of the abdomen. The form thus resembles an Indian 
hoe or stone skindresser. The sides of the prothorax are expanded into 
thin, bent lobes, before which the margin is deeply sinuated, and then 
rises into the smaller, hollowed lobes which fit against the eyes. These 
lobes are ivory white beneath, and next to them the pleural depression 
is covered by fine, dense, pale granules on a dark spot. The upper surface 
is mud-brown of any shade, or it is red if the creature lives in a soil 
charged with oxide of iron, or blackish brown in carbonaceous mud, or 
clear light brown if developed in clean, sandy loam, or flecked with silvery 
white on a mottled and variegated more or less olive greenish ground, 
when its birthplace and home are in the micaceous mixed soil. Almost 
the entire upper surface is closely set with fine raised granules, which 
give it a velvety appearance in some lights. Occasionally it frequents 
places where green slime accumulates between the stones near the bed 
of a brook, and then it is apt to be covered, and even permanently pene- 
trated by the bright green color of the alge. The legs are pale yellow, 
banded with brown; the stout, compressed fore thighs are generally 
brown, interrupted by short, yellowish, transverse marks, the underside 
armed with marginal, close set, piceous, short teeth, separated by a 
longitudinal groove into which the spinous, bent, banded fore tibie fit. 
The latter are also armed with a bunch of long spines a little way from 
the base, and between the others there are numerous more slender, 
shorter ones, which are continued upon the tarsi. The apical tarsal joint 
is also finished by a pair of long curved nails. The other femora and 
shanks are likewise banded with pale brown, and have a pair of long 
piceous curved nails.” 
G. variegatus Guer. 1844. 
Guerin. Icon. Ins. p. 352. 
This well-named species has a more definite or distinct pattern than 
the others. Champion says it is the most beautiful of the genus. “The 
pronotum is subparallel at the sides in front, the lateral angles are 
foliaceous, very distinctly crenate in front and behind, and transverse 
or subtransverse along their anterior edge.” 
Taken in Texas, California, New Mexico. 
G. vicinus Champ. 1901. 
Champion, Biol. Centr. Am. Heter. II, p. 349. 
It would appear that Montandon had named this in his notes and sent 
some of the bugs to Champion for examination. Champion says: “It is 
very like G. variegatus but has the foliaceous lateral angles of the pro- 
notum, more oblique in front (instead of subtransverse), and less coarsely 
crenate. The pronotum is strongly constricted at the sides behind the 
anterior angles, the margins being subparallel in front. The general 
coloration is usually more obscure than in G. variegatus.” 
Neotropical in distribution. 
