\^ FIELDIANA . ZOOLOGY ^^ *^^ Pvhliihed hy of>»5 CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM Volume 39 June 24, 1960 No. 36 A New Genus of Blind Beetles From a Cave in South Africa Henry S. Dybas AssociATB Curator, Division of Insects Among the minute feather-wing beetles collected by Borys Malkin in various parts of Africa during 1948^9 are specimens of a new genus of pale, blind, wingless Ptiliidae found in bat guano in Cango Caves, Cape Province, South Africa. The only Ptiliidae previously found in caves were recorded from Europe. Ptenidium coecum Joseph (Joseph, 1882), found in two caves in Trieste Province, is described as eyeless, wingless, and pale yellow. In these respects it contrasts sharply with other species of Ptenidium found outside of caves. It is said to be related to P. laevigatum Erichs., a common species found in a wide variety of situations in Europe and North Africa (Horion, 1949) but occurring chiefly in de-caying vegetation, animal dung, and mammal nests; it has also been recorded a few times from caves (Wolf, 1934-38). Recently, another species, P. ponteleccianum Strassen (1955), has been described from a single individual found in a cave in Corsica. This species is also related to P. laevigatum but it lacks the vestigial features of P. coecum. The other records of Ptiliidae from caves (Wolf, 1934-38) are those of four European species that are normally found in other habitats and are probably only accidentally or occasionally present in caves. The new genus from Africa shows many of the features associated with cavemicoly — it is blind, wingless, and pale in color. Many species of Ptiliidae found outside of caves, however, are dimorphic or polymorphic with respect to these characters. A number of genera such as Ptinella and Pteryx, which occur mostly in logs, under bark, and in tree-holes, have both normal and vestigial individuals in nearly all the described and undescribed species that I have examined. The vestigial individuals are usually much more numerous than the normal ones and in many species the eyes, wings, and body pigmentation are as much reduced as in the new African genus. This Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-1 Jf8J^2 No. 889 399 NATURAL HISTORY SURVEV IW 0-7 .n.. ^'fiRA«^
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