188 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM Vou. 113 
species and named Micronyz reicht Gyllenhal as the type of the genus. 
Two of the included species had been described in Curculio, and one 
had been described in Elleschus. The rest of the species, including 
reichi, had not been previously described. However, the name 
Micronyz was preoccupied because it had been published by Boisduval 
(in D’urville, 1835) as a name for a genus of scarabaeid beetles, and 
in 1843 Schoenherr replaced his Micronyx with the name Smicronyz. 
Smicronyz reichi then became ipso facto the type of the genus. 
The first synthetic work on the North American species of Smi- 
cronyz was published by LeConte in 1876. He placed a number of 
species, which had been incorrectly placed in other genera, in Smi- 
cronyx and erected the genus Desmoris, which included two species 
considered near Smicronyz. In addition, LeConte placed two species, 
later recognized as Smicronyz, in the genus Pachytychius Jekel. 
In 1892 Casey published a revision of the North American species 
of Smicronyz, in which he placed all of the genus Desmoris and both 
North American species of Pachytychius in Smicronyz, and in which 
he described 19 species as new. 
Dietz (1894) published a revision of the North American species of 
the subtribe Desmori (now the subtribe Smicronychi), in which he 
recognized the genus Desmoris and erected two new genera, Pachy- 
phanes and Synertha, for certain elements of Smicronyz. In this re- 
vision, Dietz also erected the subgenus Pseudosmicronyz and described 
a total of 48 new species in Smicronyz, Desmoris, Pachyphanes, and 
Synertha. 
Champion (1902) described six species from Central America and 
Mexico. In the same work he synonymized the genera Desmoris, 
Pachyphanes, and Synertha with Smicronyz, but did not give his 
reasons for doing so. 
Blatchley and Leng (1916) retained Desmoris and Pachyphanes, 
primarily to ‘‘serve the purpose in lessening the difficulties of handling 
a very unwieldy group.” 
For reasons given in other sections, the present writer includes in 
Smicronyz all the forms formerly placed in the genera Desmoris, 
Pachyphanes, and Synertha. 
By the time of publication of Leng’s ‘Catalog of the Coleoptera of 
North America North of Mexico” (1920), there were 91 specific names 
proposed for forms of Smicronyz in America north of Mexico and since 
that time a total of 8 additional specific names have been proposed by 
Blatchley (1920, 1922, 1928), Pierce (1939), Buchanan (1941), and 
Sleeper (1955). 
European workers have erected two subgenera, which include 
certain Old World species. In 1896 Desbrochers des Loges erected 
the subgenus Chalybodontus, which included a few species occurring in 
