Subfamily Thylacosterninae

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Introduction

The Thylacosterninae (previously referred to as Balginae) is represented in Australia by a single species of Cussolenis Fleutiaux (CALDER 1998). It is a cylindrical, shiny black beetle restricted to the rainforests of north Queensland (Calder 1996). However the genus and its eight species is widespread throughout the Indo-Malayan Archipelago extending as far west as Bengal as well as being recorded from Congo and Togo in Africa. They range in size from 8 to 14 mm in length.

This subfamily which also includes Balgus Fleutiaux, Pterotarsus Guérin-Méneville (= Lissothyreus Bonvouloir) and Thylacosternus Bonvouloir was originally included in the Eucnemidae (Schenkling 1928), but Crowson (1951, 1961) and Muona (1996) consider it to constitute a subfamily of Throscidae. Van Emden (1932) and Gardner (1936) on the basis of larvae, as does this author, consider that it is properly a subfamily of Elateridae.

The biology of the Australian species is not known with certainty. However, Cussolenis mutabilis (Bonvouloir) from Bengal was found in decaying logs that were being attacked by eucnemids (Gardner 1936).

General References

Calder, A.A. 1996. Click Beetles. Genera of Australian Elateridae (Coleoptera). Monographs on Invertebrate Taxonomy 2: i-x 1-401

Calder, A.A. 1998. Coleoptera: Elateroidea. In Wells, A. (ed.) Zoological Catalogue of Australia. Volume 29.6. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing, Australia. xiii 248 pp.

Crowson, R.A. 1951. The classification of the families of British Coleoptera [part]. Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 87: 117-128

Crowson, R.A. 1961. On some new characters of classificatory importance in adults of Elateridae (Coleoptera). Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 96: 158-161

Emden, F.I. van 1932. Die Larven der Callirhipini, eine mutmassliche Cerophytum-Larve und Familien-Bestimmungstabelle der Larven der Malacodermata-Sternoxia Reihe (Coleoptera). Annales de la Société Entomologique de France 72: 199-260 pls xi-xii

Gardner, J.C.M. 1936. A larva of the subfamily Balginae (Col., Elateridae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London B 5: 3-5

Muona, J. 1996. The phylogeny of Elateroidea (Coleoptera), or which tree is best today? Cladistics 11(4): 317-341 [Date published Nov. 10, 1996]

Schenkling, S. 1928. Melasidae. pp. 1-110 in Schenkling, S. (ed.). Coleopterorum Catalogus auspiciis et auxilio W. Junk. Berlin : W. Junk Vol. 96.

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