ELATERIDAE 



By R. H. van Zwaluwenberg 



(With 10 Text-figures.) 



The family Elateridae is represented in the present collections from the British 

 Museum and the Bishop Museum by fourteen species, distributed among eight 

 genera, two of which are here described as new. Six new species appear to be 

 endemic in the Samoan Islands : the remaining eight species are known also 

 to occur in other localities, as is shown in the following table. 



Species. 



Lacon modestus (Boisd.) 

 Propsephus tonga'ensis (Cand.) 

 Propsephus rufipes (Schwarz) 

 Propsephus euaensis (Schwarz) 

 Propsephus major (Cand.) . 

 Simodaetylus cinnamomeus (Boisd.) 

 Monocrepidius pallipes (Esch.) 



Melamxojithus m-elanocephalus (Fab.) 



Known Distribution outside Samoa. 



Cosmotropical. 



Tonga, Phoenix Is. 



Tonga. 



Tonga. 



Fiji. 



Throughout Oceania. 



Phoenix Is., Hervey Is., Society Is., Polynesia 

 generally. 



Southern Asia and adjoining islands from Arabia 

 to China, Polynesia. 



One additional species, Simodaetylus tasmani Cand., previously known to 

 occur in Fiji, is here noted as having been found in the Ellice group, but is not 

 included in the material from Samoa. 



The literature on Samoan Elateridae is extremely scanty ; only two 

 references are known to me : 



1901. 0. Schwarz: Deutsche Ent. Zetischr., Jahrg. 1901, p. 351. "Von {Anchastus) Psephus 

 tonga nsis liegen mir vom Hamburger Museum (Mus. Godeffroy) 2 Exemplare auch aus 

 Samoa vor." 



1908. D. Sharp : Fauna Hawaiiensis, iii, p. 369. Notes that Ischiodontus hauanensis Cand. 

 (Elater. nouv., iii, p. 42, 1881) is wrongly labelled as coming from the Hawaiian Islands, the 

 real locabty being the Samoan Islands. 



Ill 



