Platypodidae under scrutiny

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 Platyp odidae makes the subfamily Scolytinae paraphyletic. Moreover, several impor tant genera included in Scolytinae are shown to be members of Cossoninae (i .e. the placement of Protoplatypus Wood and Phylloplatypus Kato in Cossonin ae is confirmed). Based on these results, the status of Platypodidae as a f amily and subfamily is rejected, Scolytinae thereby becoming a monophyletic taxon. Araucarius groups in Scolytinae instead of Cossoninae in the analys is on a single step only, but it is suggested that it be retained in Cosson inae until this subfamily is submitted to a similar phylogenetic study. Thr ee genera and four species of Cossoninae are described as new: Dobionus Kus chel, gen. nov.: type species D. araucarinus Kuschel, sp. nov. (with the in clusion of D. brachyrhinus (Montrouzier)); Coptonus Kuschel, gen. nov.: typ e species C. fijianus Kuschel, sp. nov. (with the inclusion of C. papuanus Kuschel, sp. nov.) and Dissostomus Kuschel, gen. nov.: type species D. horn abrooki Kuschel, sp. nov.