Rhinorhipidae, a new beetle family from Australia, with comments on the phylogeny of the elateriformia

Abstract

Rhinorhipus tamborinensis, gen, et sp. nov., is described from southern Queensland, Australia, and is made the type of a new family, Rhinorhipidae, fam. nov. The major morphological features of Rhinorhipus are compared with those of related taxa of Polyphaga (Elateriformia, Dascilloidea and Eucinetoidea). Comments are made on the phylogeny and classification of elateriforms based on cladistic and phenetic analyses of a 25 taxon-112 character data set, and a tentative superfamily classification of Elateriformia, sensu novo is proposed.