Ninth Report of the State Entomologist 307 



Tenebrio obscurus Fabr. 



The Ainerica)i Meal-worni. 



(Orel. Coleopiera: Fam. Tenebrionidje.) 



Fabricius: Ent. Syst., i, pars i, 1792, p. 111. 5. 

 Westwood: Classif. Insects, i, 1839, p. 318 (larva and habits). 

 Curtis: Farm Insects, 1860, p. 334. 



Walsh: in Pract, Entomol., ii, 1866, p. 34 (brief notice). 

 Provancher: Pet. Faun Ent. Canada — Coleop. , 1877, p. 448 (description). 

 Le Baron: 4tli Rept. Ins. 111., 1874, p. 123, f. 57 (figure only). 

 Gissler: in Bull. Brook. Ent. Soc, i, 1878, p. 87 (of the larva). 

 Riley: in Amer. Naturalist, xvii, 1883, p. 547 (number of cdolts). 

 LiNTNER: in Count. Gent., Ivii, 1892, p. 501 (habits, remedies, etc.). 

 BeutenmDller: in Journ. Microscop. Soc, vii, 1891, p. 41 (bibliography of 

 early stages). 



Although rather a common insect, very little seems to have been 

 written of it by our economic cntomotogists, as appears from the quite 

 limited bibliography presented above. 



Examples of it were recently received from Buckland, Virginia, 

 asking for information of their habits, as they had appeared in large 

 numbers in a granary where wheat was stored. 



The Larva and the Beetle. 



It is greatly to be regretted that so few of our Coleoptera have been 

 described, and of those few, many have been done in so general terms 

 and so indifferently that they do not serve the purpose of identifica- 

 tion. I am not aware of any description of T. obscurus. It may be 

 said of it, as aid to its recognition when met with in the localities 

 where it is apt to occur, that it is about an inch long, cylindrical, 

 smooth, of an ochreous or pale-brown color, and with three pairs of 

 legs on its front or thoracic segments, and that it has much the appear- 

 ance of the common wire-worm. But this would apply equally well to 

 several other species of the family of Tenehrionidm.^ The larva is 

 shown at a in Figure 5. 



Perhaps the best specific characters in the larval Tenebrio are to be 

 found in their pygidium — tlie designation of the upper part of the last 

 abdominal segment. Mr. C. F. Gissler, loc. cit., has given some study 

 to the larva? of the Tenebrionidce, indicating pygidial differences 

 between them. Of T. obscurus he finds: " Pygidium comparatively 



* See the excellent and greatly needed remarks made by one of our able Coleopterists, Mr. 

 E. A. Schwarz, on many of the published " descriptions of Coleopterous larvae which are 

 wholly wanting in either popular or scientific value," in the Canadian Entomologist, xxiv, 

 1892, page 22:3. 



