1907.] Catalogue of the Coleoptera of South Africa. 413 



Ptychodesthes alternata, Klug, 



Monatsb. Berl. Acad., 1855, p. 660 ; 



Peter's Eeis., 1862, p. 263, pi. 15, fig. 8. 



Bright green, shiny ; elytra occasionally with a slight bluish tinge 

 in the median dorsal part ; antennae chestnut-brown ; clypeus punc- 

 tulate only but with the central part of the head punctate and 

 moderately densely pubescent in the male, but deeply and closely 

 punctured all over, except at the occipital base, and with the 

 flavescent pubescence very short and scanty in the female ; pro- 

 thorax extremely finely aciculate and bearing some round scattered 

 punctures along the sides and especially the base in the male, but 

 more numerous, deeper, and nearly equi-distant in the female, in 

 which also the background is quite smooth ; scutellum impunctate ; 

 elytra with two conspicuous tectiform costae uniting on each side at 

 the posterior callus, and bearing each seven punctate striae ; pygidium 

 covered with very shallow, partly obliterated cicatricose punctures ; 

 sides of abdominal segments and legs punctate ; pectus closely punc- 

 tate in both sexes and clothed with a flavescent pubescence which is 

 denser in the male than in the female, in which sex the legs are 

 somewhat rufescent. 



Length 16 mm. ; width 8-8J mm. 



Hah. Southern Ehodesia (Manica) ; Mozambique (Tette, teste 

 Klug, Beira). 



Gen. RACELOMA, J. Thorns., 

 Bull. Soc. Ent. Fr., 1877, p. cxiii. 



Mentum elongated, ovoid laterally, ligular part slightly ampliated, 

 very deeply and triangularly incised in front with the outer part of 

 the lateral lobe diagonal, palps cavity very wide, outer face clothed 

 with very long hairs ; maxillae moderately massive, inner and upper 

 lobe not dentate, the latter long and surmounted by a very long and 

 thick pencil of hairs ; clypeus deeply incised laterally in front of the 

 first antennal joint, carinate but with the sides bulging, broadly and 

 arcuately emarginate in front and rounded laterally ; antennal club 

 nearly as long as the pedicel in the $ , shorter in the ? ; prothorax 

 of the usual sub-trapezoidal shape ; sub-arcuate above the scutellum, 

 which is long and sharp, and the acuminate part slightly carinate ; 

 sternal process short, bluntly acuminate, grooved on the meta- 

 sternum, but without any traces of suture on the mesosternum ; 

 anterior tibiae dentate at apex only in the $ , tri-dentate in the 2 ', 

 inner part of all the tibiae moderately deeply pubescent in both sexes. 



This genus, which comprises two species, seems to be restricted 

 to South Africa. 



