1929] 
Is Necrophylus the Larva of Pterocroce 
313 
IS NECROPHYLUS ARENARIUS ROUX THE LARVA 
OF PTEROCROCE STOREYI WITHYCOMBE 
By William Morton Wheeler 
Nearly a century ago, in 1833, J. L. F. P. Roux, in a 
letter addressed to Baron Ferussac and published in 
the “Annales des Sciences Naturelles” mentioned and figured 
a remarkable insect, with the prothorax continued ante- 
riorly into an enormously elongate and attenuate “neck,” 
broad mesothorax, metathorax and abdomen, long, slender 
legs and small head with falcate mandibles. It measured 
nearly 11 mm. and was “found running over the sands 
which encumber the interior of tombs hollowed out in the 
rock of the environs of the pyramids of Gizeh,” near Cairo, 
Egypt. To this insect which he believed “should necessarily 
constitute a new genus among the hexapod Aptera,” Roux 
gave the name Necrophylus arenarius (p. 76). The editor 
(probably Audouin) in a foot-note asks whether it is not 
more probably the larva of some insect, “perhaps that of 
Mantispa or Raphidia.” Turning to the explanation of the 
two illustrations (Figs. 3 and 4) on p. 78 and their legend 
on PI. 7 we find in both places the name of the insect given 
as Necrophilus arenarius. This change in spelling is very 
probably due to the editor (Audouin), and has been fol- 
lowed by all the subsequent authors who have referred to 
the insect. The generic name thus becomes a homonym of 
Necrophilus (Coleopt.) Latreille (1929). But it is not 
improbable that Roux wished the name to signify “asso- 
ciated or allied with the dead,” instead of “loving the dead.” 
If this was his intention, we might have expected him to use 
the form “Necrophylius,” but the Greeks seem occasionally 
to have preferred the shorter form “phylos” as in “em- 
phylos.” Be this as it may, however, our rules of nomencla- 
ture require us to return to Roux’s original spelling of the 
