SEASONALITY AND THE FLIGHT OF PAUSSIDS 
(COLEOPTERA) IN WEST AFRICA 
By Dennis Leston* 
Biological Sciences Group 
University of Connecticut 
Storrs, CT 06268 
Introduction 
The paussids of this paper are the brown to black beetles, less 
than 8mm in length, with aberrant antennae, variously regarded as 
a superfamily, family or subfamily within Carabidae, or of even 
lower taxonomic rank (Darlington, 1950): all are myrmecophiles. 
That these insects come to light is well known; that the emission 
of adults is seasonal rests, as far as I am aware, unreported. 
In West Africa almost all insects are markedly seasonal in breed- 
ing, dispersal, population growth or other life history phenomena. 
The insect periodicities can be tied to underlying events at the 
primary producer and/ or decomposer levels and it has been dem- 
onstrated that these are associated with periodicities delimited by 
a combination of rainfall and sunshine (not daylength) factors 
(Gibbs & Leston, 1970; Leston, 1972, 1978; Leston & Gibbs, 1971). 
This paper presents the evidence for seasonality in Ghana, at- 
tempting to place the ultimate factors within the framework of 
West African phenology. 
Material and Method 
The material was named using the collection of the British Mu- 
seum (Nat. Hist.), London, where voucher specimens have been 
deposited. Taxonomists have clearly oversplit and the polytypic 
concept is not used by them. 
Paussus cilipes Westwood — represented in West Africa by a 
subspecies other than the nominate. 
♦Present address: Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, 
Florida 33124. 
Manuscript received by the editor February 28, 1978. 
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