Synopsis 

 of the genus Neuroctenus Fieb. 



By E. Bergroth. 



Fieb er founded the genus Neuroctemis in his „Eu- 

 ropäische Hemipteren" without indicating any species as the 

 type of it, only mentioning that it was an exotic one. This, 

 and the circumstance that his characters of the genus were 

 partly wrong, as was subsequently stated by Mayr, may be 

 the cause that the genus was not recognised by Stål, who 

 placed several species of Neurodefms in the genus Mezira 

 Am. et Serv. In the ,,Voyage of the Novara" Mayr gave 

 a new characteristic of the genus, correcting Fieber's er- 

 rors and describing two species, N. Hochstetteri and brasi- 

 liensis. The former one cannot, however, be regarded as 

 the type of the genus, for it was apparently unknown to 

 Fieb er when he described the genus; also it does not pos- 

 sess one of the principal characters of Neuroctenus, the flat 

 venter. Stål, finally, in his invaluable „Enumeratio Hemi- 

 pterorum" added some important marks to the definition of 

 the genus. 



The Neurocteni are distributed över all regions of the 

 world, except the paleearctic one. The neotropical species 

 have, in general, the same facies, but it is difficult to de- 

 fine it in words. That is also the case with the forms of 

 the african continent. One of the two species, indigenous 

 to Madagascar and the adjacent islands, has a close affinity 

 to the only west-australian species that I kno^v; in both we 

 find very striking sexual differences. The indo-malayan 

 species are remarkably different in external aspect, one 



