THE DEATH-WATCH AND DRUG STORE BEETLES. 



875 



XI. Lasioderma Stephens. 1832. (Gr., " hairy + skin.") 



Oval, more or less elongate, moderately convex, species having 

 the body clothed with recumbent pubescence; antennae serrate, but 

 not strongly so, the outer joints not more elongate ; elytra not stri- 

 ate; metasternum short, suddenly sloping downward in front from 

 side to side, the declivity limited behind by a transverse raised line 

 extending across the body. Two of the five known species occur in 

 Indiana. 



1663 (5299). Lasioderma serricobne Fab., Ent. Syst., I, 1798, 241. 



Elongate-oval, moderately convex. Uniform dull reddish-yellow or brown- 

 ish-red. Head broad, eyes small. Antennce rather narrow, second and third 

 joints smaller than first, the third distinctly triangular; fourth to tenth 

 about as wide as long ; eleventh oval. Thorax strongly convex, front angles 



Fig. 347. a, larva; b, pupa; c, beetle; d, same, side view, e, antenna. All enlarged. (After Howard and 

 Marlatt in Bull. IV, Div. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr.) 



acute, hind angles wanting. Punctuation of entire upper surface fine, uni- 

 form, not dense. Length 2.2-3 mm. (Fig. 347.) 



Howard, Vigo, Marion, Putnam and Lawrence counties; fre- 

 quent locally. April 10-November 7. Specimens in all stages 

 were found in smoking tobacco put up in tin boxes on the earlier 

 date. Widely distributed over the world by commerce and feeds 

 on a variety of dried vegetable products, such as cayenne pepper, 

 ginger, rhubarb, rice, figs, yeast cakes and prepared fish food. To- 

 bacco it devours in every form, in the leaf and when made up into 

 chewing plug, cigarettes and cigars. It is, therefore, often known 

 as the 6 ' cigarette beetle. ' ' Both it and the larvae may be destroyed 

 by submitting them to the fumes of bisulphide of carbon, or by 

 steaming the substance in which they are found. Drugs which 

 are badly infested should, however, be burned. 



1664 ( ). 



Lasioderma semtrufum Fall, Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, XXXI, 

 1905, 205. 



Elongate-oval. Head, thorax, under surface and appendages reddish- 

 brown; elytra dark chestnut or piceous brown. Sculpture as in serricome, 



