Central American Coleoptera

Abstract

THIS part of Godman and Salvin's great work is now complete, and though called a part is practically a volume, with introduction, indices, and completed pagination; its publication has extended over four years. It deals with the two great families of carnivorous beetles— the Cicindelidæ and Carabidæ—and consists of 316 pages of letterpress and thirteen plates of coloured figures. The number of species of the two families recorded from the region is 1086, belonging to 154 genera. Nine new genera and about 450 new species are described, this latter figure including, however, a certain number of species characterised for the purposes of this work in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1878 and a few others similarly dealt with in the Annals and Magazine of Nalural Hislory. In his introduction the author touches on some points of geographical distribution, and states that the inclusion of the central highlands of Mexico and Guatemala in the Nearctic province by Wallace is not supported by these insects, but that on the contrary they markedly confirm the essentially Neotropical character of the Central American fauna. He also is inclined to adopt the opinion that the Central American region comprises two distinct sub-provinces, as proposed by Salvin from his study of the birds, the line of division passing probably across Nicaragua; and considers that even the more northern of these sub-provinces is not a southern extension of the Nearctic province, but rather a remarkably distinct sub-province of the Neotropical fauna.

Biologia Centrali-Americana. Insecta: Coleoptera.

Vol. 1. Part I. By H. W. Bates. (London: R. H. Porter, 1881–84.)