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Psyche 4:215-216, 1883.

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PSYCHE.
NOTES ON THE HABITS OF HYPOTRICHIA SPISSZZ'ES LEC., WITH DESCRIPTION OF THE FEMALES.
BY HENRY GUERNSEY HUBBARD, CRESCENT CITY, FLORIDA. Several years ago I found in Florida
a male specimen of this beetle, impaled
upon a needle of the long-leaved pine
(Pimis attstralis) which had fallen
and lay upon the $ouncl with its pointed end projecting ~~pwiircls. The body
was pierced through the back, between
the sc~itellum and the hinge of the ely- tron. The wing-cases were spread
widely open, as in the act of flight.
Recently a second male, which is caught
in a precisely similar manner, on the
end of a broken grass culm, has been
sent from Florida to the U. S. Depart-
ment of agriculture. The beetle is
so firmly fastened that the long jouiney from Floiida has not shaken it fioin the spear of grass.
The repetition of this accident in the
case of an insect of such rare occur-
rence that it is almost unknown in col-
lections, suggested to me that the beetle might have a mode of flight very difler- ent from that of related may-beetles
(mdolonthidae) . This surmise I have
been able to verify in a manner that
throws some light upon the habits of
the beetle.
One day, last spring, during a light
shower succeeding a long drought,
while standing in an open place I be-
came aware of an insect flying around
me with great rapidity. and with a buz-
zing noise.
Presently I distinguished a
beetle which I at first mistook for an ab- norinally active individual of Eufhoria
(Catania) in&. It flew in circles,
close to the earth, and seemed to be in
search of something. Finally it made
a sudden dart into the loose sand, and
altnost immediately disappeared beneath
the surface. A considerable subterran-
ean commotion, however, marked the
spot, and I easily uncovered it at a
depth of about five centimetres. It
proved to be a male of Hyfotrichia
spissipes, and as I took in my hand,
a second male, nit11 which it had been
locked in combat. disengaged itself and
flew awaj. A female, which I fortu-
nately secured, was immediately be-
neath the struggling males. It would
seem, therefore, that Hypoh-ichz'a is not entirely crepuscular like its relatives the may-beetles (Lachnosterna), but that
it also flies by day ; at least in clo~~dy weather. Its flight resembles that of
certain cetonians, which flit, hither and thither, keeping close to the ground.
The latter, however, are abroad during-
the brightest noon-day sunshine. The
body, especially in the males, is very
thinly chitinized, and this, with its
headlong flight, exposes it to such acci- dents as are recorded above. The
females are exceedingly rare. They can




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216 PSYCHE. [October-December 1884.
upon occasion make good use of their
wings, but probably fly only at night,
Fig'. I,;. Hvpotrichia sj~isszjks Lec. a, antenna of male; b, antenna, of female; c, front tibia of male; d, ditto, female.
and are more subterranean in their
habits than the males ; this is indicated also by their form, which is heavier,
more strongly built, and less pubescent
than in the male. As this beetle has
hitherto been known in the male sex
only, I add a description of the female.] Description of the female.-Color
piceo-rufous, head and thorax darker ;
body shining, beneath sparsely pubes-
cent, above very sparsely covered with
short, stiK hairs ; head small, convex,
eyes small, scarcely visible from above ; two basal joints of antennae enlarged,
as in the male, the five following joints globular ; club equal in length to the
five preceding joints, with a conical
prominence on its outer face ; thorax
rounded, convex, coarsely punctate ;
å
sc~~tellum short, nearly triangular, not 1 Leconte's original description of the male may be found in his "Classification of the coleoptera of North , America. . . . pt. ~"(Smithsonian misc. coll., 1862 v. 3), P. 137-
rounded behind ; el\ tra shining, coarsely but obsoletely punctate, sutural stria
well marked; pygidium much wider
than long, finely and densely punctate.
r ,
I he female is somewhat larger, more
elongate and more convex than the male
and is without the long and dense
pubescence so conspicuous in that sex ;
the head, and especially the eyes are
smaller ; the thorax is larger, much
more convex laterally and longitudi-
nally, the base less lobed at middle,
and is much less densely and more
coarsely punctured ; viewed from above
the convexity of the sides conceals the
true margin of the thorax which thus
appears more regularly rounded than in
the male. The five joints which con-
stitute the scape of the antennae are -well separated, and not connate as in the
male, and the conical projection, which
in the male appears upon the edge of
the last joint, and gives to the antenna an irregular outline, is centrally placed in the female, and the club is regularly oval in outline.
The legs of the female are stouter, and
project rigidly from the body, recalling the characteristic appearance of the
oryctinc ( Orycfes, A$ho~zz/s, etc. ) .
The front legs are especially fossorial, the tibia being very broad, excavate
within, and armed with three stout teeth on the outer edge. The male tibia is
straighter and narrower, and has only
two teeth.
The remarkable sexual differences in
this species call to mind the still greater



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October-December 1884.] PSYCHE. 21 7
dissimilarity of the sexes in
Reocoma,
which genus has been placed by
Leconte in the distant coprophago~~s
series of Lainellicorns. Quite recently
Gerstacker has pointed out the close
relationship which exists between
Pleocoma and the European genus
Pachyfus, the latter an undoubted
melolonthian. The females in these
genera resemble each other closely, and
in both are without wings or wing-
covers.
It seems probable that Leconte was
somewhat misled by the determination
of a larva described by Osten Sacken as
that of Reocoma.^ This larva is sup-
posed by Gerstiicker to belong to a
lucanid beetle, but it may with greater
probability be conjectured to be the
larva of a Geotmfes.
Between the females of Hyiotrickia
and those of Reocoma evidences of re-
lationship are not wanting, and as both
must now be considered members of the
inelolonthian series, a closer comparison than has yet been made will possibly
bring the two genera into still more in- timate relations.
The series of genera,
Hypotricw Hectrodes and Pleocoma,
exhibits a very instructive passage from a winged insect with active powers of
flight, as in the male of Hyfot~ichia,
to the degraded, wingless, and wholly
subterranean female of Pleocoma.
2 Entom zeit . . . . Stettin, 1883, jahrg. 44, p. 436. 3 Trans. amer. entom. soc., 1874, v. 5, p. 84. DRINKING HABIT OF A MOTH.^-
E. D. Jones describes a remarkable
drinking habit of a yellow and black
Brazilian moth (Panthers [con-.] $a?*-
dalaria). He found these moths sit-
ting on the wet stones in small streams
near San Paulo,' sucking up the water
in a continuous stream,
and letting it
escape in drops from the abdomen.
These drops fell at the average rate of
50 per minute, and as near as he could
judge of their size, the total quantity of water which must thus pass through the
body of the moth in three hours must
be a cubic inch, or about 200 times the
bulk of its own body. Mr. Jones spec-
ulates on the possible meaning of this
1 Proc. lit. and phil. soc. Liverpool, 1883, v. 37, p. 76-77.
and asks--'Can it be that the moth
extracts nourishment from minute parti-
cles of organic matter contained in the
water?" He remarks, however, that
the water of the streams appear very
clear and pure, and notes that the moths seems specially adapted for this habit.
The tibiae of the hind leg's are very
thick, and are armed with
long hairs,
which by their capillary action prevent
the moth being immersed in the water.
lbI have often," he adds, "seen one of
them knocked clown by a little spurt of
water splashing over the stone 011 which it was standing, and it recovered itself almost immediately without being wet-
ted in the least."- Joz~r~t. roy, micros. SDC., Oct. 1884, s. 2, v. 4. p. '741.




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