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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2009
A Large part of an account of the Anobiid beetles of the Seychelles Islands by the present writer, recently published (1924), consists of a description of a complex of species of small and obscure insects which it was extremely difficult to unravel. For these beetles, which vary in length between 1·6 and 2·6 mm., a new genus, Nesotheca, was erected. It was found that this genus has representatives in the Oriental Region, though the species of it which occur in the Seychelles are almost certainly endemic to those islands. Owing to the external characters being in many cases very inconstant, it proved impossible to discriminate between the various species at all satisfactorily by these characters alone, and therefore recourse was had to an examination of the genital armature, or aedeagus, of the males. This organ presents in the genus Nesotheca a remarkable series of quite distinct and constant forms, so that specimens which are almost, or entirely, indistinguishable externally, fall into quite clearly demarcated species when the aedeagus is used as a criterion. That the organ exhibits a quite different form in each of the ten species described can be seen by glancing at the figures in the paper to which reference has been made.