THE SIAMESE GRAIN BEETLE. 
(Lophocateres pusillus King.) 
By F. H. Chittenden, Sc. D., 
In Charge of Truck Crop and Stored Product Insect Investigations. 
INTRODUCTORY. 
Among other species of injurious insects found for the first time 
in rice and other cereal exhibits, at the World's Columbian Exposition, 
held in Chicago in 1893, there was a small trogositid beetle, Lopho- 
cateres pusillus Klug, which occurred in exhibits from Siam, Liberia, 
and Ceylon, and which was new to the writer at that time. This species 
was not then included in our faunal lists, nor does the writer know of 
any record of its having become established in North America until 
about 1905 s , although the French coleopterist M. A. Fauvel had 
expressed the belief that 
the species might occur 
in North America. At 
the time of its discovery 
at Chicago it could not 
be ascertained whether 
this insect was preda- 
ceous or granivorous in 
habit. Nothing more 
Fig. 2. — The Siamese grain beetle (Lophocateres pusillus): a, 
Adult or beetle; b, antenna of same; c, larva; d, pupa, a, c, d, 
About ten times natural size; b, greatly enlarged. (Original.) 
was heard of the insect 
until ten years later 
(1903) when living 
specimens were ob- 
served during Septem- 
ber in corn from Blanco, 
Peru, South America. 
November 30, 1904, this bureau received from Mr. D. S. Bliss, 
Bureau of Plant Industry, a bag of paddy rice-heads from Java in 
which this species was living. Many of the kernels showed where the 
beetles had escaped. 
August 10, 1905, Mr. D. A. Brodie, also of the Bureau of Plant 
Industry, sent specimens in rice from a rice mill at Charleston, S. C, 
where the insect was associated with the common Tribolium na- 
vale Fab. and Lsemophlceus minutus Oliv. and was evidently estab- 
lished. During the same month Mr. Samuel G. Stoney, Charleston, 
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