Habitat: New York, Maryland.
Entirely black, shining like pitch on the under side. Head broad, flattish, and smooth. Thorax margined, smooth, and convex. Scutellum obsolete. Elytra margined, smooth, not reaching to the anus, and rather longer than the thorax. Anterior tibiæ having three teeth on their outer sides, above which are several very minute ones. Intermediate and posterior thighs and tibiæ smaller than are usually observed among those lamellicorn beetles which have no scutellum.
The advantages resulting from the modern method of investigation adopted in Natural History in general, and especially in Entomology, are no where more conspicuous than in the case of the present species of dung-rolling beetles or pillularii, as they were aptly termed by Pliny and other old writers; the present species inhabiting North America, having been long confounded with an inhabitant of Southern Europe, which indeed possesses a similarity in general appearance and habits, but belongs to a distinct genus. Linnæus applied the term pilularius specifically to the species inhabiting Italy and Spain; referring, however, to Catesby's Carolina, pl. 11., so that it is evident that this writer had never seen the North American insect. Schonher however remarks, "scarabæus pillularius Linn. pertinet ad At. volvens Fabr;"[[28]] whilst Fabricius, although quoting Drury and De Geer (who both figure the North American species) has increased the confusion by giving Southern Europe as its habitat. Under these circumstances I have done our author the justice to revert to his specific name; his being certainly the earliest systematic specific reference to the American species, which may be distinguished from the European one by the following particulars:—
| Genus. Coprobius, Latreille. (Elytra entire at the sides; intermediate tibiæ with two spurs.) Coprobius lævis, Drury. (Scarab.) volvens, Fabr. Habitat. North America. | Genus. Gymnopleurus, Illiger. (Elytra with a deep lateral notch near the shoulders; intermediate tibiæ with one spur.) Gymnopleurus pilularius, Linn. (Scarab.) Fabr. Oliv. Habitat. Southern Europe. |
ONITIS SPINIPES.
Plate [XXXV]. fig. 8.
Order: Coleoptera. Section: Lamellicornes. Family: Scarabæidæ, MacLeay.
Genus. Onitis, Fabr. Scarabæus, Linn. Drury.
Onitis Spinipes. Exscutellatus niger opacus, capite subcornuto, pedibus intermediis dilatatis et incisis. (Long. Corp. fere 1 unc.)
Syn. Scarabæus Spinipes, Drury, App. vol. 2. (1773).