368 Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology. Vol. VII. 



Trichodes oresterus sp. nov. (PI. V, fig. 4.) 



Slender, bright metallic blue; abdomen usually in part, flanks of 

 elytra, a broad basal fascia, a median fascia and on arcuate vitta red. 

 Antennae shining black, club red. Head coarsely, densely punctate, 

 clothed with long, rather dense, ashy white pubescence; palpi pale. 

 Thorax as wide as long; disk convex; postapical constriction feeble; 

 apex truncate; flanks arcuatel}' narrowing to basal constriction; 

 surface coarsely, densely punctate ; a longitudinal smooth depression 

 at middle of base; pubescence long, erect, ashy white at apex and 

 flanks, black on disk. Elytral parallel; apices arcuate-truncate, the 

 sutural angle prolonged but rounded; surface coarsely cribrately 

 punctate, verj^ feebly striate; color violaceous; the flanks narrowly, a 

 basal fascia prolonged along the suture, a median feebly undulate 

 fascia and a vitta starting at the flanks at apical fourth curving to 

 near the suture thence continuing arcuately to the median fascia 

 with which it is confluent one-third from the suture, red; all the fas- 

 ciae broadest at flanks; the red margin extends from base to outer 

 end of arcuate vitta. Sides of metastemum densely clothed with 

 long, whitish hairs. Abdomen clothed with long, whitish, evenly 

 distributed pubescence. Length 8.5-1 1.4 millim. 



Allied to peninsularis but has the head densely punctate, the 

 punctuation of thoracic disk denser at the sides, the elytral pubes- 

 cence pale on the red parts and the abdomen evenly clothed with 

 whitish pubescence; the color and markings are also somewhat 

 different. 



That oresterus is a variable species in coloration is evident as 

 shown by the series before the writer. In an example from Marfa 

 the antennse are black, the club very obscurely reddish, the abdomen 

 entirely red, and the prothorax black with apical fourth and base 

 narrowly blue. The median fascia is sometimes interrupted at the 

 suture and in the type specimen the basal fascia extends along the 

 suture to the median fascia with which it is confluent. The abdomen 

 usually has the first and second ventral segments and the anterior 

 half and the sides of the others excepting the sixth broadly sanguineous 

 red, but in one specimen nearly the entire abdomen is pitchy black. 

 (Elytral markings, pi. VI, fig, 21.) 



Alpine, Texas, 4,400-6,000 ft. el; Marfa, Texas, 4,600-4,800 ft. 

 d.; Pecos. Texas. Type in cabinet of Prof. Wickham, to whom the 

 writer. is indebted for a cotype. 



