ADOBETUS. 359 



395. Adoretus nietneri. 



Lepadoretus nietneri, Ohaus, Deutsche Ent. Zeits. 1914, p. 507. 



" Elongate-oval, moderately convex, blackish brown, with reddish 

 yellow legs, closely punctured all over, not very shining, so thickly 

 clothed with short white or greyish-white decumbent scales that 

 the surface is entirely covered. Clypeus semicircular, with slightly 

 reflexed margin ; clypeal suture straight. Front and hind margins 

 of the pronotum almost straight, the sides slightly widened in the 

 middle, the blunt hind angles not rounded, the nearly right-angled 

 front angles slightly produced. On the elytra the primary costae 

 are slightly raised and appear in a certain light a little paler than 

 the intervals ; the scales are everywhere rather evenly distributed, 

 but upon the apical callus there is a longer tuft of hairs, which 

 is broader than usual ; outside of and before this hair-tuft is a 

 blackish-brown bare spot, sometimes absent ; epipleurse almost 

 absent. Pygidium with a small eminence before the extremity, 

 the area between the two bare, the eminence and its immediate 

 neighbourhood with long erect whitish-yellow scaly hairs. Legs 

 short and stout ; front tibiae with three sharp teeth, middle and 

 hind tibiae with two short oblique obsolete spinose carinse. 



" The paramera of the aedeagus are united as far as the apices 

 and closed above,, so that the aperture is on the ventral side. 



"Length, 10 mm. ; breadth, 5 mm. 



" CEYLON (Nietner)" 



Type in Dr. Ohaus' collection. 



Subfamily DESMONYCIN^. 



This subfamily is formed for a single insect, of which only the 

 male is yet known. It has so far been found only on a single 

 occasion by the late skilful and successful collector, Doherty, but 

 for whose premature death in East Africa our knowledge of 

 tropical insect-life would undoubtedly have advanced much more 

 than it has done. Of the habits of this isolated insect nothing 

 whatever is known. From the greatly developed antennal club 

 of the male, the character of the organs of the mouth, and the 

 fact that half a dozen specimens taken by Doherty are all of 

 the same sex, it is probable that the adult life is short and the 

 female has sluggish and retiring habits quite different from those 

 of the male. 



The structure of the head and mouth are very peculiar. The 

 clypeus is strongly constricted between the points of insertion of 

 the antennae and divided in front into three diverging lobes, 

 which are all curved upwards. The labrum is extruded as a 

 narrow tongue or tubercle projecting between the long slender 

 mandibles. This structure is entirely unlike anything found in 

 any other subfamily of Pleurostict Lamellicornia. All the mouth- 

 parts appear to be in a degenerate condition, the mandibles, 



