1928] Notes on the Life History of Pelecium sulcatum Guerin 131 
NOTES ON THE LIFE HISTORY OF PELECIUM SULCA 
TUM GUERIN 1 . 
By George Salt. 
On the ninth of December, 1926, while searching for insects at 
the edge of a banana plantation near Sevilla, Department of 
Magdalena, Colombia, I came across a beetle pupa lying about 
5 cm. deep in the soil of a grassy area a few metres distant from 
the bananas. The pupa was casually examined and then isolated 
in a vial. Early on the morning of December eleventh it was 
found to be accompanied by a small, spindle-shaped larva which 
appeared to be eating it. Twice the larva was moved a few 
millimetres off, and each time it made its way back and lay with 
its mouthparts touching the pupa. By noon the larva had grown 
enormously and had turned slightly darker in colour. On the 
morning of December twelfth it had completed its meal and was 
about 8 mm. long and 2.5 mm. in maximum diameter, tapering 
to each end. Nothing remained of the beetle pupa but its 
shrivelled skin; it had been completely consumed in twenty-four 
hours or a very little more. On December fifteenth the larva 
seemed about to pupate but failed to do so, and three days after- 
wards was dead and mouldy. 
Some months later, in the same general locality, a similar 
larva was found eating a soft young leptodesmid millipede in its 
transformation chamber in the damp soil of a banana field. It 
completed its meal, lay for some days quiescent, and then pu- 
pated. After a pupal period of five days it emerged as an adult 
beetle which Mr. Howard Notman has kindly identified for me 
as Pelecium sulcatum Guerin , one of the Peleciinae (Dupuis, 1913), 
an aberrant group of Carabidae. As nothing seems to be known 
of the immature stages and life history of any member of the 
subfamily, and as, in the course of my work, several other larvae, 
pupae, and adults of this interesting beetle were obtained, I 
venture to offer these very sketchy notes. 
Contribution from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Institu- 
tion, Harvard University, No. 293. 
