372 Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. VII. 



Trichodes nexus sp. nov. (PI. V, fig. 5.) 



Form of ornatus but slightly more robust and elytra more strongly 

 convex; green, shining, sparsely clothed with moderately long, erect, 

 yellow hairs. Head rather finely and densely punctate; antennae 

 and palpi red, basal joint of the former infuscate above. Thorax 

 as broad as long, broadest at the middle; subapical constriction 

 feeble, rather strongly compressed at base; surface coarsely, rather 

 sparsely punctate. Elytra black or violaceous, feebly shining, with 

 faint cupreous reflections in certain lights; pubescence (except on 

 fasciae) black; surface rather coarsely, deeply, roughly but not 

 densely punctate; markings somewhat similar to ornatus; a basal 

 fascia prolonged posteriorly, parallel with but distant from the 

 suture and acuminate at apex; a median fascia feebly arcuate, very 

 slightly oblique and widely interrupted at the suture, and a very 

 oblique fascia at apical fourth, narrow, yellow; the humeral um- 

 bones black; apices very obtuse, nearly truncate. Body beneath 

 and abdomen dark green, the latter with ventral segments two, three, 

 and four at posterior angles broadly and two apical segments entirely 

 sanguineous red. Legs black, with a slight bluish tint. Length 8.2- 

 II millim. (Elytral markings, pi. VI, fig. 26.) 



Allied to ornatus, from which it may be known by its more strongly 

 convex form, the more finely and densely punctured head, and the 

 more deeply, coarsely, roughly sculptured and less shining elytra. 

 The markings of elytra and color alone would seem distinct enough 

 to make recognition of this species an easy matter. The extent of 

 red abdominal markings is quite variable; one specimen has the 

 abdomen entirely green, except the posterior margin of the fifth 

 dorsal and ventral; another has the posterior angles of the second 

 and third, the posterior margin of the fourth, and the fifth and sixth 

 ventral segments entirely red; while still another has the fifth and 

 sixth entirely red, the other segments being without markings. 

 The writer has examined over three hundred specimens of ornatus, 

 not one of which has shown a trace of red on the ventral surface of 

 the abdomen. The tarsi are sometimes red, the middle and posterior 

 pair often infuscate. 



Four specimens, San Jose del Cabo, Lower California. Type in 

 collection of the author; cotypes in cabinet of Prof. Wickham. 



Trichodes ornatus Say. 



Trichodes ornatus Say, Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., in, 1823, p. 

 189; Klug, Abh. Herl. Akad., 1842, p. 340; Spinola, Mon. 



