THE IDENTITY OF MACROCEPHALUS BIDENS 
OLIVIER, 1795, WITH A REVIEW OF 
THE GENUS TOXONOTUS LACORDAIRE 
(COLEOPTERA: ANTHRIBIDAE) 1 
By Barry D. Valentine 
Mississippi Southern College, Hattiesburg 
Recently, while checking the descriptions and figures 
of Anthribid weevils in Olivier’s Entomologie, my atten- 
tion was drawn to an unfamiliar name. A check of some 
other important anthribid literature revealed that in the 
one hundred and fifty-nine years since Olivier’s descrip- 
tion and figures were published, the name, Macrocephalus 
bidens, has vanished from the pertinent anthribid litera- 
ture of the world with the single exception of Schonherr’s 
Genera et Species Curculionidum, where in volumes one 
and five (1833, 1839) it is listed in “incerti generis, species 
mihi invisae”. It is not mentioned in Lacordaire (1866), 
Bovie’s catalogue (1906), Wolfrum’s paper on West Indian 
anthribids (1930), the anthribid portion and supplement 
of the Coleopterorum Catalogus (Wolfrum, 1929, 1953), 
or Blackwelder’s catalogue (1947). 
Actually, Macrocephalus bidens Olivier should not be 
dropped from the lists, for it is a recognizable species. 
It is restricted to this hemisphere by its type locality “Saint 
Domingue” which has gradually changed through Saint 
Dominique, Santo Domingo, and Dominican Republic, and 
at the time of Olivier’s description, referred to all, or 
part, of the island of Hispaniola. Once a Caribbean locality 
is established, the description and figures characterize 
bidens as having a short, wide rostrum, three transversely 
arranged “tubercles” on the disc of the prothorax, more 
“tubercles” on the elytra, and very hairy legs. This com- 
bination of features immediately rules out all New World 
genera except Neanthribus Jordan and Toxonotus La- 
cordaire. The two genera in question both occur on His- 
'Published with a grant from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 
Harvard College. 
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