Jan and Bohumila Bechyné gathered for many years all available information on genera, species and subspecies of Neotropical Alticinae, Galerucinae, Eumolpinae and Chrysomelinae. All that information was condensed in hand-written catalogs. Much of this information is not available anywhere else, that is why we decided to scan all the hand-written notebooks and make them available at this site for all students of Chrysomelidae to use.
First we targeted Alticinae, eventually all other subfamiles will follow. The notebooks where originally labeled by the Bechyné's as: Alticidae 1, Alticidae 2, Alticidae 3 and Alticidae 4. The last notebook also has part of Chrysomelidae 2 (Chrysomelinae sensu auctorum).
The first notebook includes a generic index in the first pages. Most of these notebooks where handwritten by Jan Bechyné himself, with some editions and remarks by Bohumila Bechyné.
Each genus is presented only on the right page of each spread, containing the following information:
- At the center the Genus name and author, sometimes only the Genus name.
- At the right upper corner the type species of the genus, and the name of the Tribe which the Bechyné's considered that the genus should be placed.
- Under the genus name, the reference where the genus id first described, and following all other publications that mention or describe species/subspecies in the genus. Further down all generic names considered synonymous with their respective references.
- Next we find the list of species and subspecies with their respective synonymy and list of references.
- At the right hand side of the page, next to each species the name of the Country (and State when available) of recorded distribution.
- The left page of the spread was used only to place species described afterwards. In this same page they would place species from other genera that the Bechyné's considered misplaced. Please note that most of the information that appears in the left page was never formally published.
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ALTICIDAE 1
General Index
Size: 46 MB. |
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ALTICIDAE 2
Size: 47 MB |
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ALTICIDAE 3
Size: 43 MB. |
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ALTICIDAE 4
Size: 77 MB. |