104 Psyche [October 



IVraiMECOPHILOUS INSECTS FROM CUBA. 



By William M. Mann, 

 Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D. C. 



A collection of myrmecophilous insects that I made in Cuba the 

 past winter, though very small, includes several genera new to the 

 fauna of that island. In addition to records of these, I have de- 

 scribed a Clavigerid beetle, Fustiger schwarzi, sp. no v., from a 

 specimen in the U. S. National Museum. 



Orthoptera. 



Myrmecophila americana Sauss. 

 Guantanamo; Cienfuegos. 



I am following Schimmer (Zeitschr. wiss. Zool. Bd. xciii. Heft. 3, 

 p. 432) in considering this to be the same as M. prenolepidis Wasm. 



My specimens were taken with Prenolepis longicornis Latr., the 

 usual host. Besides its wide-spread distribution M. americana is 

 interesting in that it lives only with this one species of ant, instead 

 of taking up with almost any species, like our North American 

 forms do. Assmuth (Zeitschr. f. wiss. Insektenbiol. 1907, Bd. iii, 

 p. 363-364) has given an interesting account of the moving of a 

 «olony of the host ant to a new nesting site. The crickets and the 

 beetle, Coluocera maderoe WoU. accompanied the ant column and 

 •entered the new nest with it. Myrmecophila does not always 

 leave a nest when the hosts do, for specimens are frequently found 

 in formicaries that have been deserted by the ants. In connection 

 w^ith the local distribution of Myrmecophila the following note is 

 <of interest. 



On Plummer's Island, Maryland, in an open-air insectary, 

 several cigar boxes used as breeding cages had been left for some 

 time on a high shelf. When I looked into these I found them 

 tenanted by populous colonies of Crematog aster lineolata Say, and 

 •with these, several adults of Myrmecophila pergande; Scud. The 

 ■crickets had either climbed the five feet of pole that held the 

 shelves, or they had been transported by the ants, perhaps as im- 

 anature phases. I think the latter more probable, chiefly because 

 (of some observations made on a related species of cricket on various 

 Islands in the Southwest Pacific. I found the cricket abundant, 



