1978] Peck — Adelopsis in the Southern Appalachians 359 
surface of each side of tip. Parameres fused to aedeagus at base; 
with three terminal hairs. Spiculum gastrale short, thick, less than !4 
its length projecting beyond anterior end of genital plates. Sperma- 
theca thin and curved; anterior recurved and often with flattened 
crest; posterior end often laterally curved-back on itself. 
Bionomics. The known United States species are all inhabitants 
of moist moss, litter, and soil of forests in the Appalachian 
Mountain Chain, south of the limits of glaciation, from the 
lowlands inside the Fall-line to the summits of the highest moun- 
tains. They are occasionally found in soil-filled rock crevices or 
under large rocks deeply embedded in forest soils, but are more 
usually captured by sifting litter and moss and by extracting them 
with Tulgren-Berlese funnels. The litter at the sides of rotting logs 
seems to be a favored habitat. They may be locally abundant in 
association with decomposing fleshy fungi or material richly im- 
pregnated with fungal hyphae, but some may be taken at dung or 
carrion baits in forests, or in caves. The frequency with which they 
have been collected in caves reflects only that this is a way by which 
a collector can gain easy access to the faunas of deep soils. In caves, 
the beetles are found near cave entrances only and not in the deep 
regions of caves. The beetles are not morphologically adapted for 
caves as such. This is evident when they are compared to cave- 
evolved species of Ptomaphagus (Peck, 1973), so they should be 
termed edaphophiles (or endogeans or edaphobites), rather than 
troglophiles, or troglobites. In litter, they seem to be more fre- 
quently encountered in the springtime and early summer, probably 
because they are more commonly present in the upper layers of 
litter and soil which are cool and moist at these seasons. They 
probably retreat downwards with the increasing warmth and dry- 
ness of summer. Records do not indicate it, but I think they would 
be active and accessible to the collector in the late fall and at certain 
times of the winter as well. 
Life cycle characteristics have been determined only from speci- 
mens captured on several occasions in Morrison’s Cave, Dade 
County, Georgia, and kept in laboratory culture at 15°C. The 
techniques are those used in culturing Ptomaphagus beetles (Peck, 
1973, 1975). Eggs are laid singly by the females on the soil surface of 
the culture vessel. These hatch in a mean time of 12 days (range 
9-15, n = 7). There seem to be three larval instars, and these feed for 
about 20 days before constructing a mud igloo or pre-pupation cell, 
