1244 



I?A MIL Y LV. — TENEBRIONID.E. 



antennas are usually bead-like or moniliform, and the mouth parts 

 rather small and not prominent. Our species occur for the most 

 part on fungi or beneath bark, but in the desert regions of the West, 

 where the family is richly represented, they take the place of the 

 Carabida? and are found on the ground, beneath cover of any kind. 



In addition to the general characters given above, the Tenebrion- 

 idaa have the head narrower than thorax; mandibles short, robust 

 and furnished with a basal tooth ; eyes usually transverse, with their 

 front emarginate; antennas inserted under the sides of the head, 11- 

 (very rarely 10-) jointed; front coxae short, globose, separated by 

 the prosternum, their cavities entirely closed behind; elytra rounded 

 at tip, covering the abdomen, the latter with five ventral segments, 

 the first three more closely connected than the others ; first joint of 

 hind tarsi almost always longer than second ; tarsal claws simple. 



The larva? are long and slender, with the body often flattened, 

 somewhat like a wireworm, and of a hard, horn-like texture. Six 

 thoracic legs are present, and in addition, a short prop or pseudopod 

 on the under side of the anal end. They are for the most part 

 scavengers, living in dead or decaying wood and dry vegetable prod- 

 ucts or fungi. Some of them, as the ''meal-worm,'' are injurious, 

 though none attack growing crops. About 10,000 species of Tene- 

 brionidas are known, 750 of which are listed from the United States. 

 As already mentioned, the vast majority of these occur only in the 

 Western and Southwestern States, where they often form the most 

 striking feature of the Coleopterous fauna. In Indiana but one of 

 the three subfamilies into which the family is divided is represented, 

 and this only by 52 known species. The principal paper and the 

 only one treating of the North American species of the family as a 

 whole is by 



Horn.— "Revision of the Tenebrionida? of America," in Trans. 

 Amer. Phil. Soc, XIV, 1870, 253-404. 



A number of genera have since been treated separately by Horn, 

 Casey and others and the papers will be mentioned under their re- 

 spective tribal or generic headings. 



Subfamily I. TENEBRIONINAE. 



In this subfamily, to which all the Indiana representatives of the 

 family belong, the hind margin of the third and fourth ventral seg- 

 ments is leather-like or coriaceous in texture ; the middle coxae are 

 usually provided with a distinct trochantin and their cavities ex- 

 tend outward to reach the epimera. The inner wings are more often 



