550 Transactions South African Philosophical Society, [vol. xtn. 



the vertex, canthus of the large globular eyes reaching the centre ; 

 antennae 10-jointed, the club is tri-jointed, but the three preceding 

 joints are angular and not much developed ; prothorax quadrate, 

 longitudinally grooved in the centre, smooth but foveolate on the 

 sides ; elytra slightly broader at the base than the prothorax, but 

 slightly ampliated laterally past the median part and covering the 

 pygidium ; abdomen much depressed ; legs not very robust ; anterior 

 tibiae 7-dentate outwardly ; intermediate and posterior grooved longi- 

 tudinally, the hind ones ending in two long spine-like processes 

 outwardly. 



Greatly resembling the well-known West African genus Pentalobus, 

 but distinguished by the 3- instead of 5-jointed antennal club ; 

 the prosternum is plane, graduate for two-thirds of the length, then 

 conically acuminate to the base of the coxae and continued thence 

 to the apex as a simple, not grooved, highly raised longitudinal 

 ridge. 



The genus includes only African species. 



Eumelosomus sansibaricus, Har., 

 Monatsb. Akad. Wissensch., 1880, p. 262. 



Black, very shiny ; labrum clothed with a long fulvous pubescence ; 

 clypeus provided in front with five sharp, equi- distant porrect teeth 

 of equal length, in the centre of the frontal part is a raised triangle, 

 beginning at the base of two of the porrect teeth and culminating in 

 the centre of the head, the three angles of the triangle being dis- 

 tinctly toothed ; on each side of the apical tooth but set further 

 towards the vertex is a more or less distinctly toothed tubercle, the 

 vertex is transversely depressed, and the whole surface is very 

 roughly pitted ; prothorax smooth on the greatest part of the disk 

 but with deep, round, sub-variolose, irregularly disposed punctures 

 forming also an irregular row along the anterior margin as far as a 

 third of the whole width, the lateral ovate impression is hardly dis- 

 tinct ; scutellum impunctate ; elytra depressed with the intervals 

 smooth, the four dorsal striae are narrow and finely punctate and the 

 intervals are broad, but they gradually deepen and broaden towards 

 the apex, the other striae become twice as broad as the very narrowed, 

 sub-carinate intervals, and are divided by regular walls into sym- 

 metrically transverse foveae ; abdomen aciculate laterally, lower part 

 of sides of metasternum roughly punctate ; prosternum fimbriate ; 

 femora impunctate or with a few punctures ; anterior tibiae of $ 

 with a long tooth at the inner part of the base. 



Length 27-30 mm. ; width 9-10 mm. 



