Adult male somewhat thick and short. Antennæ of nine joints, the first short and thick, the remainder long and nearly equal; each joint after the first has many nodosities, from which spring longish hairs. Foot long and slender, especially the tibia. Digitules fine hairs. Thoracic band inconspicuous. Abdominal spike short and blunt.
This species is usually accompanied by a great quantity of very black fungus covering and rendering unsightly the whole plant on which it lives.
Habitat—On Hymenanthera crassifolia, Evans Bay, Wellington.
This insect seems to be intermediate between C. piperis and C. depressus, differing from both in the rugose female test and the distribution of the spinneret orifices.
37. Ctenochiton perforatus, Maskell.
N.Z. Trans., Vol. XI., 1878, p. 280; Vol. XVI., 1883, p. 130.
([Plate VIII.], Fig. 2.)
Test of adult female white, waxy, circular, nearly flat, brittle, thin except at the edge. Fringe thin, segments broadly triangular. Diameter nearly 1/6in. The test is divided by narrow lines of minute spots, corresponding to the spinneret orifices of the insect, into rows of pentagonal or hexagonal segments. The interior segments are only dotted, but the exterior row exhibits curvilinear series of small perforations or air-cells arranged in slightly radiating rows, which extend also to the corresponding segments of the fringe.
The test of the second stage of the female is very thin and filmy, waxy, flat, slightly elongated; the fringe as in the adult; but there are no perforations or air-cells. Length, about 1/14in.