Platypodidae under scrutiny

Abstract

The historical status of the family Platypodidae is reviewed and the family is revised. Results of a cladistic analysis based on 35 terminal taxa and 80 adult morphological characters show that the current placement of Platypodidae makes the subfamily Scolytinae paraphyletic. Moreover, several important genera included in Scolytinae are shown to be members of Cossoninae (i.e. the placement of Protoplatypus Wood and Phylloplatypus Kato in Cossoninae is confirmed). Based on these results, the status of Platypodidae as a family and subfamily is rejected, Scolytinae thereby becoming a monophyletic taxon. Araucarius groups in Scolytinae instead of Cossoninae in the analysis on a single step only, but it is suggested that it be retained in Cossoninae until this subfamily is submitted to a similar phylogenetic study. Three genera and four species of Cossoninae are described as new: Dobionus Kuschel, gen. nov.: type species D. araucarinus Kuschel, sp. nov. (with the inclusion of D. brachyrhinus (Montrouzier)); Coptonus Kuschel, gen. nov.: type species C. fijianus Kuschel, sp. nov. (with the inclusion of C. papuanus Kuschel, sp. nov.) and Dissostomus Kuschel, gen. nov.: type species D. hornabrooki Kuschel, sp. nov.