Ploeosoma Ellipticum

Thomas Vernon Wollaston published this drawing in his book ‘Insecta Maderensia’ in 1854. In the book he thanks Westwood for providing the illustrations, ‘Particularly, however, would I draw attention to the valuable help which I have received from J. O. Westwood, Esq., whose pencil has been so elaborately employed in the figures which I am thus enabled to attach, and by whom many of the minutest of the dissections were accomplished, — with a degree of delicacy, moreover, to which I did not myself at the commencement of this Work (though I have since succeeded in anatomizing the larger portion of them, likewise) lay claim.’

122. Ploeosoma ellipticum, Woll. (Tab. IX. fig. 9.). Wollaston wrote the following about this species:

‘It is confined exclusively to the forest districts of Madeira, where it would appear to range between the limits of from about 2500 to 5000 feet above the sea, occurring more especially, as might be expected, in those spots which, from the difficulty of access, have been least disturbed. It is found either beneath bark or in the interior of rotting wood,—occasionally even adhering to the undersides of wet decaying logs, particularly in regions where the moisture is excessive, and where consequently decomposition goes on the most rapidly. I have taken it at the base of the Pico Grande and in the Boa Ventura, during- February ; on the Lombo das Vacas, in June ; at the Lombo dos Pecegueiros, in July ; and at the Feijaa de Corte, at the beginning of August.’