OCR Text |
Show 1897.] OP T H E F A M I L Y ENDOMYCHIDCE. 457 below the acute and prominent front angles, and contracted from the middle to the hind angles, wdiich (as the base is sinuate) are also acute; the basal sulci are parallel to the oblique and contracted sides, and are continued as a kind of depression above the middle; the sides are neatly margined and a little reflexed; the disk has two blunt tubercles, one on each side of an obsolete central channel. The elytra are shining near the suture, rather opaque at the shoulders and sides, with large irregularly dispersed punctures, in twos and threes, and become roughly seriate near the suture. The humeral callus is elevated into an arcuate ridge which projects beyond the margin; the basal tubercle is slightly ridged and is faintly pitchy at its summit; the discoidal one is nearer the base than the apex and is pitchy red in the middle, it is gradually and not suddenly elevated. The apical yellow pustule has just a trace of one or two obsolete punctures, it is translucid. The elytra are a little expanded at the margins and pointed at the apex ; their texture is pitchy black, and may be likened to caoutchouc. On the underside the only part which exhibits punctures is the intercoxal process of the first abdominal segment, which is deeply and coarsely punctured. The prosternum is coarsely formed, its process bluntly bimucronate. Mesosternum with the raised and margined intercoxal part transversely pentagonal'. I have described this species at some length, as with A. rude-punctatus, here described, it belongs to a section of Amphlstemus little known, and which I believe forms the genus Haplomorphus, Guerin. AMPHISTERNUS RUDEPUNCTATUS, n. sp. Brevior, prothorace lato, elytris breviter ovatis glbbosis; subopacus, prothorace lato lateribus rotundatls postlce parum angustatls, angulis anticis parum prominulis; elytris sub-cordatls, gibhosls, grosse seriatim punctatls, antennarum artlculo aplcall, palpis tarsisque rufo-picels. Long. 7*5 millim. § . Hab. A S S A M , Patkai Mountains (Doherty). Thorax very wide, the sides much rounded, the front cut out in an arc, but not so deeply or widely as in A. verrucosus, the surface very uneven and very obsoletely punctate ; the base very wide, a little sinuous, not margined ; the sulci and central channel very obsolete, the transverse basal line very distinct. Elytra much wider than the thorax, without tubercles, a little expanded towards the margins; the apex and humerus nearly free from punctures but opaque. Underside shining, glabrous; epipleurse very wide at their bases. A single female example of this rather extraordinary Amphisternus is in Mr. Fry's collection; it is entirely black, with 1 Obs.-This portion is generally but incorrectly referred to by authors as though it were the mesosternum. There is a considerable part forming two branches, and partly enclosing the coxa?, in front of this; and this portion is carinate in Amphisterni, the carina being received between the points of the divided prosternal process. |