Longitarsus Isoplexidis

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.’

337. Longitarsus Isoplexidis, Woll. (Tab. IX. fig. 4.). Wollaston wrote the following about this species:

‘One of the most elegant and truly indigenous of all the Coleopterous insects of these islands ; and confined exclusively, so far as I have hitherto observed, to the scarce and magnificent Isoplexis sceptrum,—the most singularly beautiful perhaps of all the plants (strictly native) which the Madeiran group produces. It was not until my explorations of 1850 that I discovered this grand addition to our entomological fauna ; and indeed, from the remote and almost inaccessible ledges on which it occurs, it might well, even though thus conspicuous, escape observation altogether.’