302 
Psyche 
[September-December 
Figure 8. Map of distribution of Prionochaeta opaca Say. Closed dots, epi- 
gean records. Open dots, cave records. A dot may indicate more than one county 
locality record. Disjunct forest populations occur in the Black Hills of South 
Dakota, and in northern Florida. These and the prevalence of cave records in the 
south indicate adjustment of the species’ range to post-glacial climatic conditions. 
forested situations. Experimental field studies back this up. Walker 
(1957) took P. opaca during systematic trapping in Tennessee only 
in mesic and bottom forest, and not in drier ridge forest and old 
field habitats. Reed (1958) found the species in Tennessee on 
carrion in forests but never in pastures. Within a single mesic 
forest there is probably little microhabitat preference. Pirone 
(1974), in a trapping study in New York, collected about equal 
numbers of beetles in both forested slope and level sites. Shubeck 
(1969) found the species to be more common in a shrub commu- 
nity of arrowwood and greenbrier than in maple-leaved viburnum 
and black-haw shrub areas, in a New Jersey oak-hickory climax 
forest. 
Wherever the beetle has been collected it seems to be a general- 
ized scavenger on decaying organic matter, perhaps actually feed- 
