Descriptions of Tertiary insects / by T.D.A. Cockerell.

  • Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Descriptions of Tertiary insects / by T.D.A. Cockerell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    4/18 page 52
    This may well be the larva of the genus Neothanes Scudcler, described from the Green River beds; but as this cannot be demonstrated, 1 leave it in the blanket genus Caralites. It is dedicated to tiie writer who first described and figured the larva of an American Caraljns. It is to be remarked that the Mormohicoides articulatus Hitchcock, from the Trias of Turner’s Falls, Mass., is extraor- dinarily like a Carabid larva, and resembles the present insect in the relatively small head and short prothorax. The lateral hind corners of the segments in the Mormolucoides are very much more produced, herein agreeing better with the larva of Silpha. (2) A Cicada from Florissant, Colorado. Platypedia primiyenia sp. nov. Figs. 1, 2. Length about 23 (the apex of abdomen is lost); thorax 9’’ long and 8 high (deep); compared with the living P. putnami Uhler, the body is larger and more robust, and tlie head is directed downwards, so that the frontal outline, in lateral view, is much more nearly vertical; the robust anterior legs are well preserved, and appear to be as in P. putnarni ^ as in the living species, the femora are black, and the coxse, seen from behind, pallid; length of anterior femur and co.xa 4, of tibia 3^; wings hyaline, with dark veins, as in the recent species, the large triangular second nlnar cell being normal for the genus. Compared with P. putnami., the following differences in the_ details of the venation are apparent:— (1) The fourth apical cell has its inner point lower, so tiiat the lower side of its basal end is not quite lialf as long as the upper. (2) The seventh apical is narrower, its length being at least twice its breadth. (3) The eighth apical is longer. Florissant, Station 14 (Wilmatte P. Cockerell., 1907). One specimen, with reverse, in Yale University Museum. P. putnami Uhler is found in Colorado to-day; a specimen before me was collected by Mi\ C. DeVoss in Gregory Canon, Boulder Co., Colorado, July, 1907. P. primigenia will be easily known fi’om Lithocicada p)erita Ckll. by the shape of the eighth apical cell, and from Cicada grandiosa Scudd. by the much smaller size.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3