56 
Psyche 
[March 
Description. Body color pale; golden brown. Size 2. 5-2.8 mm 
long; 1.6-1. 8 mm wide; 1.5-1. 6 times as long as wide; widest across 
pronotum. Pronotum 1.8-1. 9 mm wide; 1.8-1. 9 times as wide as 
long. Elytral width across scutellum tip 1.2-1. 3 times greaer than 
elytral length from scutellum tip. Head and pronotum without, 
but elytra with, stiff and semi-erect golden hairs; fine recumbent 
setae on all dorsal surfaces except polished pronotal disc. Pronotal 
microsculpture and striae absent. Elytral striae coarsely spaced, 
about 2 per 0.1 mm. Genital plate and spiculum gastrale as in fig- 
ure 10. Aedeagus tip wider (fig. 11), without down-curved tip in 
side view. Spermatheca unknown; damaged in dissection of the 
unique female. 
Variation. No variation is noted. 
Etymology. The name refers to the arid grassland and shrub 
desert region of Arizona and adjacent parts of Mexico. 
Biology. The beetle is known to occur only with Pogonomyrmex 
rugosus Emory, one of the harvester ants. Dr. Floyd Werner (per- 
sonal communication) reports that the specimens were taken in a 
nest of this ant in the upper half meter. The nest was excavated to 
a depth of about 3 meters, and contained more than 22,000 workers. 
This nest was similar in structure to that excavated in Maricopa 
County, Arizona, and reported by Wildermuth (1931) as a nest of 
P. barbatus, but which was most likely a nest of P. rugosus. The 
host ant ranges over much of the arid southwestern US and adjacent 
Mexico (Creighton, 1950; Cole, 1968) and so might the beetle. One 
highly modified larva was taken in April with the adults in the upper 
part of the nest (deposited in MCZ). The ants usually nest in stony 
soil in open deserts (Creighton, 1950) and the general vegetation 
in the vicinity of Tucson is an open lower elevation Sonoran shrub 
and cactus desert. 
Echinocoleus chihuahuensis sp. n. 
Holotype female and allotype male in California Academy of 
Sciences. Type locality: Texas, Culberson County, 5.5 mi N Pine 
Springs (west Dog Canyon, 5300-5400 ft. elev., in Guadelupe Moun- 
tains National Park). Type data: 2.x. 1975, D. E. Foster collector, 
in nests of Pogonomyrmex maricopa Wheeler (Foster determina- 
tion). Paratypes: ten with same data, and three with same data but 
9.vi.l974 (deposited in MCZ, Texas Tech, and SBP collections). 
