Proceedings of 

 the United States 

 National Museum 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Volume 117 1965 Number 3515 



REVISION OF DIAPERINI OF AMERICA NORTH OF MEXICO 



WITH NOTES ON EXTRALIMITAL SPECIES 



(COLEOPTERA: TENEBRIONIDAE) 



By Charles A. Triplehorn ^ 



Introduction 



In the family Tenebrionidae, the darkling beetles, is a group of 

 genera which centers around the enormous and cosmopolitan genus 

 Platydema. This group has been recognized as a natm-al one for a 

 long period (see history of the group below), and has been referred 

 to variously as a family, a subfamily, and a tribe. For reasons 

 which will become evident later, I propose to regard it as a tribe, 

 Diaperini, in the subfamily Tenebrioninae. 



Various elements have been shuttled in and out of the Diaperini 

 by different authors and a number of classifications have been pro- 

 posed. Numerous attempts have been made in the past to define 

 the limits of the tribe, but most of these were based solely on the 

 fauna of a particular region and, when expanded to embrace the 

 world fauna, were found to be quite deficient. As usual, the earlier 

 works were based for the most part on the European fauna. For- 

 tunately the Nearctic fauna is comparable to that of the Palaearctic 

 region, so that both fit the system reasonably well. 



' Department of Zoology and Entomology, Ohio State University, Columbus, 

 Ohio. 



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