Litargus Pictus

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.’

159. Litargus pictus, Woll. (Tab. IV. fig. 5.). Wollaston wrote the following about this species:

‘A truly indigenous and distinct Litargus, and by no means uncommon throughout the sylvan regions of Madeira between the limits of from 2000 to abort 4500 feet above the sea. I have rarely observed it below the former of those altitudes; although I once detected a single specimen even in the immediate vicinity of Funchal (in the Rev. R. T. Lowe's garden at the Levada), attracted by the light of a candle into an open window, after twilight :—that specimen however, I have but little doubt was an accidental one, brought down perchance from the mountains through the agency of the wood-cutters, or by some other means equally the result of chance. It is found for the most part beneath the loose bark of trees,—under which circumstances I have taken it abundantly during the summer months in the districts of the Ribeiro Frio and the Panal.’

Object Summary

Accession Loan No.
638/1911
Collection Class
Drawings
Medium
watercolour on card
Common Name
Litargus Pictus
Simple Name
drawing
Period Classification
Victorian (1837-1901)
Production Town
Production Date
1850
Production Person Initials
John Obadiah
Production Person Surname
Westwood
Production Year Low
1850
Production Year High
1850

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Litargus Pictus Woll