AKT. 23 REVISION OP THE BEETLE GENUS OEDIONYCHIS — BLAKE H 



This species was described by LeConte as dull, opacjue black, with 

 tip of abdominal segment and back pale yellow. The type came 

 from Santa Fe, N. Mex. Horn adds Arizona as its habitat. A 

 series of specimens in the National Museum from Arizona is dull, 

 opaque black, some with no yellow on abdominal segments, some 

 with tip of abdomen yellow. Another series from Montana and 

 Colorado is not opaque black, but dull piceous, feebly shining, three 

 specimens having abdomen without yellow, one with entire last 

 abdominal segment and margin of next broadly yellow. In the 

 Casey collection are four specimens from California, from just over 

 the Nevada boundary, at an altitude of 5,800 feet, which are polished 

 and even lustrous aeneous, and in only one is there any sign of yellow 

 tip to abdomen. A third series from British America is dull blue 

 black, feebly shining, with tip of abdomen yellow. In the British 

 Museum is a fourth series of specimens labeled by Baly OedionycMs 

 arctica (manuscript name) with the locality labels Arctic America 

 and Hudson Bay. They are dull black with a faint bronze or i)urple 

 luster, and in two of the seven specimens there is a yellow tip to 

 abdomen. Jacoby has mentioned this name and stated that he was 

 unable to separate the specimens so labeled from his Mexican 

 modesta. He described Oe. modesta as having no pale abdominal 

 segments.'" In the fourteen specimens of modesta in the British 

 Museum one has a faint yellow-brown margin to abdomen and 

 several a yellow point at apex, which is as much yellow on the 

 abdomen as in many specimens of lugens of the Rocky Mountains 

 and Canada. The specimens of Oe. modesta are distinctly smaller, 

 from 4 to 5 mm. in length, and are variable in metallic luster, but 

 otherwise I can find no differences. The range of Oe. lugens^ if these 

 are all of that species, would be from southern Mexico to Hudson 

 Bay, an exceedingly long range, explainable only by the theory 

 that this is an upper Sonoran or almost boreal species inhabitating 

 high altitudes in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. 



In the National Museum is a series from Arizona so distinct in 

 appearance from the typical opaque black lugens of Arizona that 

 it seems worthy of varietal distinction. 



OEDIONYCHIS LUGENS LAMPROCYANEA, new variety 



Moderately shining dark blue or bluish green. Head densely and 

 coarsely punctate usually throughout, pronotum densely and mod- 

 erately coarsely punctate, elytra finely i:)unctate, more distinctly so 

 at base. Beneath, the last ventral segment entirely yellow brown 

 and margins of other segments more or less yellow brown. 



Length. — 5 to 6.3 mm. 



""Biol. Cent. Amer., Coleopt., vol. 6, pt. 1, 1886, p. 411. 



