No. 12. The Fossil Elateridae of Florissant. 

 BY H. F. WICKHAM. 



ELATERID beetles are fairly common as fossils. Some of the earli- 

 est Coleoptera known, occurring in the Triassic rocks, had the form 

 of an Elater more or less sketched out but, according to Handlirsch, 

 who has seen the specimens, none of them displayed characters which 

 would allow them to be placed in the modern family with any cer- 

 tainty. Again, in the Liassic beds, the elateriform Coleoptera ap- 

 peared, this time in rather greater abundance, but even yet they seem 

 to present no evidence of belonging to the family in a proper sense. 

 The lithographic chalk of Jurassic times has furnished insects which 

 have even been referred to the recent genus Elater but here, as before, 

 Handlirsch believes that the closeness of relationship has been over- 

 estimated, though he states that his Jurassic genus Malmelater 

 belongs at any rate to the Elateridae. This seems to be the earliest 

 well-supported record of the appearance of the family in geologic time. 



Following the Jurassic, we have a period of immense duration in 

 which no large deposits of Coleoptera were made or, if they exist, 

 none have been discovered. No more Elateridae are recorded until, 

 after the opening of the Tertiary, when they begin to be at least 

 moderately numerous. Menge is said to have had 130 specimens 

 from the Amber fauna. In the later deposits of Oeningen and other 

 European Miocene localities they seem to be quite abundant, Heer 

 having described many, some in fine preservation. By this time they 

 had become so much like our modern forms that generic identity 

 frequently seems quite well established though one cannot feel sure 

 that some important character may not have been carried away with 

 a missing member. Tarsal lobes and claw-teeth scarcely ever remain 

 intact, the mesosternum is often too distorted to study and in many 

 instances it is impossible to make out the limits of the metacoxal 

 plates which play so large a part in the classifications of systematists. 



In the way of giving at a glance the published standing of Elateri- 

 dae in Tertiary strata, the following outline, compiled mostly from 

 Handlirsch and with his assignment of the age of each deposit, may 

 be useful. The records are given by localities in preference to arrange- 

 ment by generic sequence. 



