A CONTEIBUTION TO NEOTROPICAL THYSANOPTERA. 369 



A Oontribntion towards a Knowledge of the Neotropical Thysanoptera. 

 By Richard S. Bagnall, F.L.S., F.E.S. 



(Plates 51-53.) 



[Eead 17th March, 1910.] 



I HAVE recently bad the pleasure of examining two small collections ot 

 Thysanoptera from Central America, which were submitted to me through 

 the kindness of Dr. Meinert (Copenhagen) and Mr. G. C. Champion (on 

 behalf of Messrs. Godman and Salvin), to whom my thanks are due. I am 

 also grateful to Prof. Bouvier for the opportunity of examining the material 

 in the Paris Museum, and include the description of a single species, 

 i>. nitidus, from this latter collection. Part of the material sent by these 

 gentlemen has already been described *, and it will be noticed that, though 

 the collections are small as regards the number of specimens, they include. a 

 large ninnber of very interesting forms, the chief interest lying, perhaps, 

 in the comparatively large number of species referable to certain genera or 

 groups of genera. Thus in the allied genera Idolotlirips, Haliday, and 

 Dicaiot /trips, Buffa, we find no less than twelve species : I. longiceps, Bagnall, 

 /. assimilis, Bagnall, T. affinis, Bagnall, /. angustatus, sp. n., D. foveicollis 

 (Bagnall), D. nitidus, sp. n., D. grandis, sp. n., D. Cliampioni, sp. n., D. Icevi- 

 ■collis, sp. n., D. propinquKs, sp. n., D. distinctus, sp. n., and JJ. hrevicornis, 

 sp. n. ; these genera apparently finding their headquarters in Central America. 

 Again, in the closely allied genera LiotJirips, Uzel^ and JDiceratothrips, Bagnall, 

 we are able to record at least five forms. 



So far as possible I have endeavoured to figure each of the species hero 

 described, so as to show more clearly differences that are difficult to explain 

 in words. Owing to the small amount of material at my disposal, especially 

 as regards the genus Dicaiothrips, I hesitated long before admitting the 

 rights of certain forms to specific rank, but I firmly believe that in each case 

 the characters I have used are good and valuable ones, the relative lengths 

 of the abdominal segments being, in my opinion, especially useful. 



Further, many of the specimens were dried and mounted, and others, 

 again, were preserved in alcohol, some of these latter being distended, and 

 thus demanding the utmost care in their discrimination and description. 

 It would have been, in every way, more satisfactory if one could have 

 examined a larger mass of material, and it is to be hoped that further 

 collections may be made in the near future, together with observations as to 

 the habits, etc., of these much-neglected insects. 



* Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. of jSTorthumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, n. s. 

 pp. 188-217, pis. 6 & 7 (1908) ; Journ. Linn. Soc, Zool. xxx. pp. 329-335, pi. 46 (1909). 



29* 



