1936] 
West Indian Dryopidae 
77 
12. Pelonomus obscurus gracilipes Chev. (PI. Ill, fig. 10) 
( rufescens Casey) 
Ann. Soc. Ent. France (ser. 4) 4, 1864, p. 406; Casey, 
Coleop, Notices 5, 1894, p. 581. 
Cuba (and Florida) : Chevrolat’s type was from the for- 
mer; Casey’s, from the latter. We have specimens from 
Soledad, near Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Cuba, Aug., Oct., 
and Nov., and from Florida (Brighton near Lake Okeecho- 
bee, and Homestead) ; the species occurs in aquatic vegeta- 
tion in ponds and is sometimes very abundant at light. The 
subspecies gracilipes differs from typical obscurus only in 
the usually narrower prosternal fissure and more slender 
anterior <£ claw joint, which is parallel or slightly narrowed 
basally. Some of my Florida specimens are strongly rufe- 
scent like Casey’s types, but the majority, and all the Cuban 
ones, are colored like typical obscurus. There is some varia- 
tion in the form of the scutellum. 
Pelonomus obscurus, both subspecies, has striking second- 
ary sexual characters, some of which were noted by Sharp 
(l. c.) . The last 2 joints $ maxillary palpi are very elon- 
gate, the subapical a little over % as long as the apical (in 
2 shorter, with relatively shorter subapical) ; the claw joint 
$ front tarsus is broader than in the $ ; the $ mid- 
dle tibiae are bent in at apex; and $ 3rd and 4th ven- 
tral segments are shortened or telescoped so that apical seg- 
ment is relatively large and usually bent down. These char- 
acters are absent in the other Pelonomus known to me, and 
make recognition of obscurus easy. Moreover the S geni- 
talia of the latter are unique in that the lateral lobes are 
notched inwardly to receive the apex of the middle lobe. 
P. obscurus is, of course, recorded from Mexico and 
Guatemala (Sharp, l. c.) as well as from the regions given 
above, but I do not know which subspecies is in Central 
America. 
13. Pelonomus picipes (Oliv.) (PI. Ill, fig. 11) 
( palpalis Sharp) 
Ent. 3, 1795, 41 bis, p. 4, PI. 1, fig. 2 a, b, c (Dryops) ; 
Latreille, Hist. Nat. 9, 1804, p. 226; Lacordaire, Gen. 
Coleop., 1855, Atl. PI. 24, fig. 1; Coquerel, Rev. Mag. 
Zool. (2) 3, 1851, p. 602; Sharp, Biologia Cent.-Amer- 
1, part 2, pp. 122 (1882) & 774 (1887). 
