4 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. XI, January, 1957 
Generic and specific boundaries have not 
been easy to determine, and, after repeated 
study, some specimens must still be left un- 
identified and others given questionable gen- 
eric placement. Furthermore, the major part 
of the material belongs to the subfamily 
Eumolpinae, which is known for the difficulty 
of tribal and generic placement of its mem- 
bers. It may be of interest to quote Maulik’s 
statement [1929: 191]: "The study of the 
Eumolpinae of the present collection lends 
support to an idea which suggested itself to 
me when I was studying other island faunas, 
such as that of the Seychelles. In that case also 
I was confronted with the same difficulty of 
judging the limits of a species which showed 
structural variations. The idea may be for- 
mulated thus: in island faunas species tend to 
become more plastic than in continental 
faunas.” This statement would appear to 
apply very well also to the chrysomelid fauna 
of Fiji, and particularly to that of the sub- 
family Eumolpinae. 
Fiji has a rather rich insect fauna, possessing 
many genera not found farther east in the 
Pacific. Also, the endemicity is rather high. 
Only six of the fifteen Asiatic subfamilies of 
Chrysomelidae are represented in Fiji, whereas 
twice as many, or more, are represented in 
New Guinea. Thus it would appear safe to 
say, from consideration of this family of 
beetles, that Fiji represents an oceanic island 
group, or a relic continental group, which 
lost much of its original fauna through partial 
submersicn, vulcanism, or tectonic activity. 
Fiji possesses many old metamorphic and 
plutonic rocks, suggesting that it was part of 
an ancient Melanesian continent (Ladd, 1934: 
49). On the other hand, Mayr (1941: 191- 
195) and Myers (1953: 19-27) have shown 
that the vertebrate fauna indicates that Fiji is 
oceanic rather than continental. The junior 
author feels that if Fiji were continental in the 
full sense, then more subfamilies, tribes, and 
genera of Chrysomelidae should be repre- 
sented (see Gressitt, 1956: 14). The situation 
in this family appears to differ from that in 
the Tenebrionidae as discussed by Kaszab 
(1955: 430), who concluded that the Fijian 
fauna was continental. 
The Fijian chrysomelid fauna is character- 
ized by a fairly small number of genera (35), 
many of which have developed a considerable 
number of species. There are four genera with 
species thought to be all introduced, or of 
doubtful generic placement. The remaining 
31 genera possess an average of 4.3 species 
per genus in Fiji. Actually the ratio is still 
greater, as a number of species represented by 
uniques are left unnamed. Seven genera have 
over six species, five genera have over eight 
species, and three have over ten species. There 
are three endemic genera, besides some which 
may need naming. 
The distribution of the 32 non-endemic 
genera, including those with introduced spe- 
cies, is as follows: 
NUMBER OF GENERA 
Fiji and Samoa only 2 
Fiji, Samoa, New Hebrides 1 
Fiji and New Hebrides 2 
Fiji and New Zealand 2 
Fiji and Australia 2 
Fiji and Papuan Subregion 2 
Fiji and Solomons 2 
(one also in New Hebrides and Samoa) 
Fiji and Philippines 1 
Fiji and Africa 1 
(also Madagascar, New Caledonia, and 
perhaps Australia) 
Fiji and Oriental Region 9 
(some occurring also in New Guinea or 
intermediate islands) 
Cosmopolitan 8 
Hence the relationships appear to be with 
Southeast Asia, through New Guinea, much 
more than with the Australian region. Nine 
of the twelve chrysomelid genera in Samoa 
are also found in Fiji. Six of the 17 Microne- 
sian genera also occur in Fiji. 
Of the 137 species or subspecies listed in 
this work, 127 appear to be endemic to Fiji. 
