File:British Entomology Volume 7 (John Curtis) Plate 417.jpg

English: John Curtis British Entomology (1824-1840) Folio 417 Ceratophyllus elongatus synonym of Ischnopsyllus elongatus the Yellow Bat’s Flea.The plant is Erigeron acer (Blue Fleabane).

CURTIS PLATE

NOTE

Entomological Magazine 1 1833 Art. XLI.—On the Structure of the Antennae in the Order Aphaniptera" of Kirby, with reference to the Propriety of the Establishment of Genera upon the Variations of those Organs. By J. O. Westwood, Esq., F.L.S. &c.

In the 417th plate of Mr. Curtis's British Entomology for August 1832, another species of flea was illustrated under the name of Ceratopyllus elongatus, with the observations, that,from repeated examinations, that gentleman had found it necessary to divide the Pulices into two genera; that the P. Talpae, previously figured as an example of the genus Pulex, belonged in fact to the new genus ; and that the discovery of the antennae of P. canis, by Mr. Haliday, rendered it necessary to erase the paragraph in the 114th folio, quoted above. A copy of Mr. Haliday's figure of the antennae of the latter species (which is considered as a true Pulex) is introduced into Mr. Curtis's plate of Ceratopyllus ; but it is not quite correct, being described as only two-jointed, the basal joint having only a single bristle near its internal apex. The dissections of Ceratophyllus are taken from the Pulex hirundinis, which is considered as the type, and of which the antennae are described as slightly attenuated and four-jointed, although one of them is represented in the plate as five-jointed. Of the species figured as the example of the genus, Cer. elongatus, the antennae are not described; but in fig. 16 they are represented as eight-jointed, the basal joint being pear-shaped, the second subcyathiform, and the remainder transverse, forming a thick oval mass. In the coloured figure of this insect, these organs are however represented of the same attenuated form as in Cer. hirundinis, and apparently having only six joints. And in the Pulex talpa, which is expressly stated to belong to Ceratophyllus, the antenna are described and figured as ten-jointed, the basal joint being ovate-truncate, and the nine remaining annulose, and forming a rather elongate-ovate mass.