W. M. Wheeler.
A Giant Coccid from Guatemala.
Psyche 20:31-33, 1913.

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19131 Wheel-A Giant Cm&d from GuatmaLa 31 proportion, much more broadly rounded so that the arcuation of the angles involves the front border to the extent of loss of the straightness of the anterior margin. The clypeal disk is much less strongly punctured and the concavity is more pro- nounced. Frontal suture strongly winate, front and vertex Iess punctured than in A. camancha. Prothorax with the sides a little divergent, the posterior angles slightly everted, while in A. camancha the sides converge a little posteriorly and the angles are not everted. Pronotal discal punctuation finer, and more scattered. Elytral stria1 punctuation a IittIe more pronounced than in A. camancha, but that of the intervals much Iess so, the broadest interspace, next to the sutural stria, ha+g a rather irregular single series only. Pygidium finely and very sparsely punctate. Claw structure almost identical with the preceding species. Length :2.25 mm. -- -- --
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Described from a single specimeny collected by myself, July 9, at El Paso, Texas.
This, tooy is a Rhombonyx, differing at once from A. camancha in the cariniform frontal suturey agreeing in this character with A. carinifrons Bates and A. catifrons Lee. From the former, it may be told by the thoracic punctuation ("sat dense et fortiusy' in A. carinifr~m)~ the single punctate series on the subsutura1 interval and the distinct though not very strong dilatation of the major anterior tarsal claw. From ca&fronsy it separates by the larger size, the punctate elytral intervals and the shape of the prothorax.
A GIANT COCCID FROM GUATEMALA.
BY WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER,
Bussey Institutiony Harvard University.
The Coccid~ are usually described in our entomological text- books as 'csmall" or "minute" insects, and this is certainly true of the species of temperate regions. In the tropics, howevery where the family is most abundantly representedy there are several large forms which make their congeners look like pygmies. For exam- ple, the adult female of Hemilecanium theobrom~ Newstead, one of the species found on cacao in Cameroon, West Africa, is 13-15 mm. long and 12-13 mm. widee1
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1 Newstead, On a Collection of Coccidz. and Other Imecta Ahcting Some Cultivated and Wild Plants in Java and in Tropical Western Africa. Journ. Econ. BioL 111, No. 2, 1908, pp.
33-42, 2 pls.




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32 Psyche [February
Newstead has also recently described and figured an even larger species, Aspidioproctus maximus, the old adult female of which measures 33 mm. in length, 25 mm. in width and 15 mm. in heighte1 This occurs in German East Africa, Rhodesia and Cape Colony, chiefly on the M'sasa tree (Bradjustagia randii Buteers) . Another species of the same genus from German East Africa (A. armatas Newstead) is considerably smaller, measuring 12-17 mm. in length, but is nevertheless a very large Coccid. On December, 1911, at San Lucas Toliman, on the shore of Lake Atitlan, Guatemala (alt. 5000 ft.), I found a large Coccid on the .
branches of one of the Erythrina trees (presumably corallodendron, the "arb01 madre" of the Mexicans) very commonly used to sup- port the barbed wires around the plantations and gardens. The tree, which bore no leaves owing to the lateness of the season, looked from a little distance as if it were covered with galls as large as cherries, but the columns of fire ants (Solenopsis geminata), attending th&e objects, soon opened my eyes to the fact that they were Coccids and not vegetable excrescences. Some of the specimens were sent to Prof. Cockerel1 who pro- nounced them to be, in all probability, Signoret's Lecanium sallei, since assigned to the genus Neolecaniurn Parrott by Prof. Co~kerell.~ I find on looking up Signoret's description3 that it agrees very well with my specimens, though it is very brief and apparently drawn from a single specimen. This was received from Sallh, who collected it somewhere in Mexico, but without indicating the hos t-plant.
My specimens are all adult or nearly adult females and measure 11-20 mm. in length, 10-15 mm. in width and 9-14 mm. in height. As they have contracted since they were collected, the dimensions of the living insect are probably 2-4 mm. greater. The largest individuals have the elliptical body evenly smooth and convex above, but the smaller ones, though very convex in the mid-dorsa1 region, have the sides depressed and more or less distinctly trans- versely ridged. The ventral surface is flat or concave and under 1 On a Collection of Coccidxe and Aleurodid~, .chiefly African, in the Collection of the Berlin Zoological Museum. Mitth. Zool. Mus. Berlin V, 2. Heft, 1911, pp. 155-174, 12 text figs. 2 A Contribution to the Knowledge of the Coccidz. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (7) IX, 1902, pp. .
450-454).
a Essai sur les Cochinelles ou Gallinsectes (Homopt&res-Coccicles) lle Partie. Ann. SOC. Ent- France (5) 111, 1873, pp. 395-448).




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E@brim %wigs,
Neohmnium ~~ does not- seem to be .a common specks, in various iomiitks in Cwta Em and Guatemla, the sing1 at San Lucas Tohmm was the only one on which it WBS found.



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