AUSTRALIAN CARABID BEETLES XIV. PERIGONA * 
By P. J. Darlington, Jr. 
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University 
This paper is a by-product of work on New Guinean Perigona > 
which forced me to identify the Australian species and compare them 
with the New Guinean ones. New Guinea, incidentally, possesses 14 
species of the genus: 8 in Perigona sensu stricto and 6 in subgenus 
Trechicus. The only species common to Australia and New Guinea 
is probably the nearly cosmopolitan nigriceps Dejean. 
The last key to Australian Perigona then known (3 species) is by 
Sloane (1903, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales 28 , P. 635). One 
additional species has been recorded since then, but probably in error. 
It is P. plagiata Putzeys, which ranges from southeastern Asia and 
Japan to the Philippines and New Guinea. Csiki (1924, Ann. Mus. 
National Hungary 21 , p. 172) lists it from “New-South-Wales: Mt. 
Victoria (Biro, 1900).” However, I have seen (borrowed from the 
Hungarian National Museum) specimens with this label, and they 
were set with and exactly match specimens of the species collected in 
New Guinea by Biro. I feel sure that the supposed Australian speci- 
mens are wrongly labeled and are really from New Guinea. So far as 
I know, the species has not been found in Australia by other collectors. 
The two subgenera of Perigona (see following key) differ in habits. 
Perigona s. s. usually occurs under bark of logs or in rotting logs; 
subgenus Trechicus, among leaves or in leaf mold on the floor of rain 
forest. Perigona (Trechicus) nigriceps (Dejean), however, occurs 
also in fermenting vegetation and some other plant materials and has 
been carried over the warmer parts of the world by commerce. 
Key to Australian Species of Perigona 
1. Three seta-bearing punctures of submarginal depression (at outer 
curve of elytron at 2/3 or 3/5 of elytral length) forming a straight 
line (Perigona s. s.) 2 
— These punctures forming a triangle (subgenus Trechicus ) 3 
2. Length c. 7 mm.; color light brown, head dark, elytra yellow 
tricolor 
— Length c. 4 mm. ; reddish, head dark, elytral disc more or less 
(variably) dark rufilahris 
3. Eyes large, forming c. right angles with neck; front of head and 
* Manuscript received by the editor May 14, 1964. 
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