Pleocomidae, Le Conte, 1861

Krell, Frank- Thorsten, 2006, Fossil Record And Evolution Of Scarabaeoidea (Coleoptera: Polyphaga), The Coleopterists Bulletin (mo 5) 60, pp. 120-143 : 126

Pleocomidae : CRETOCOMINAE Nikolajev 2002 , stat. nov. (L Cretaceous)

Diagnosis: Pronotum without leathery anterior border; vein R3(5 RA4) not developed in apical part of ala; mesocoxae contiguous or close; six visible sternites; female genitalia with ‘large styles’. Remarks: According to the drawing in Nikolajev (2002), the first two characters are hardly traceable. Based on the fossil as shown, Nikolajev’s reconstruction is rather speculative since he uses the absence of structures in incompletely preserved fossils as characters for classification. The characters presented are shared with other scarabaeoid taxa, including the allegedly diagnostic reduced RA4 (also in Glaresidae ; Scholtz et al. 1994, but see Balthasar 1943). Nikolajev treated the group as a tribe ( Cretocomini ), and, because he considered Pleocomidae a subfamily, the Cretocomini must be upgraded to subfamily rank to be consistent with the current system.