NEW NAME FOR THE EXTINCT GENUS MESAGYRTES 
PONOMARENKO (COLEOPTERA: SILPHIDAE S.L.) 
By Alfred F. Newton, Jr. 
Museum of Comparative Zoology 
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 
Mesagyrtes communis Ponomarenko, a new beetle genus and 
species attributed to Silphidae, has recently been described from 
fossil-bearing beds of Jurassic age from the locality of Novospassk, 
USSR (Arnoldi et al., 1977: 117). Unfortunately the generic name is 
preoccupied by Mesagyrtes Broun (1895: 95), proposed for a Recent 
New Zealand species originally placed in Silphidae; this genus is 
now considered a subgenus of the genus Colon Herbst of the family 
Leiodidae (Szymczakowski 1964). 
I have brought the homonymy to the attention of Dr. Ponoma- 
renko, who has kindly allowed me to propose a replacement name 
for use in publications on the family Silphidae now in preparation. 
Accordingly, I propose Mesecanus, new name, to replace Mesa- 
gyrtes Ponomarenko (not Broun). The new name alludes to the 
resemblance in habitus between the extinct genus and the Recent 
agyrtine silphid genus Ecanus Stephens. 
Literature Cited 
Arnoldi, L. V., V. V. Zherikhin, L. M. Nikritin and A. G. Ponomarenko 
1977. “Mesozoic Coleoptera” [in Russian]. Trudi Paleont. Inst. Akad. Nauk 
SSSR 161 , 204 pp. 
Broun, T. 
1895. Descriptions of new Coleoptera from New Zealand. Ann. Mag. Nat. 
Hist. (6)15: 67-88. 
Szymczakowski, W. 
1964. Revision des Colonidae (Coleoptera) des regions orientale et austra- 
lienne. Acta Zool. Cracov. 9(8): 1e59. 
lienne. Acta Zool. Cracov. 9(8): 1-59. 
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