Platypsyllus, Ritsema, 1869

Peck, Stewart B. & Newton, Alfred F., 2017, An Annotated Catalog of the Leiodidae (Coleoptera) of the Nearctic Region (Continental North America North of Mexico), The Coleopterists Bulletin 71 (2), pp. 211-258 : 248

Genus PLATYPSYLLUS Ritsema, 1869

Platypsyllus Ritsema, 1869a : [23]. Type species: Platypsyllus castoris Ritsema, 1869 (by monotypy). Distribution. Europe, Nearctic (1–2 species).

= Platypsyllus Westwood, 1869: 118 (preoccupied, not Ritsema 1869). Type species: Platypsyllus

castorinus Westwood, 1869 (= Platypsyllus castoris Ritsema, 1869 ) (by monotypy).

= Platypsylla Ritsema ; LeConte 1872: 804 (misspelling).

P. castoris Ritsema, 1869a : [23], 1870: 185; LeConte 1872: 804 (as Platypsylla ); Horn 1882: 114 (as Platypsylla ); Reitter 1884a: 20 (as Platypsylla ); Desneux 1906: 3; Jeannel 1922b: 569; Bugnion and du Buysson 1924: 83; Hatch 1957: 18; Winter 1979: 456; Peck 2006: 86; Majka et al. 2011: 74. The beaver beetle. Syntypes in RMNH. Type locality: Rotherdam [Rotterdam], Holland (on American beaver in zoo). North American distribution (summarized by Peck 2006): Canada: AB, BC, NF (Majka and Langor 2008), NS, ON, QC, SK. USA: AK, AL, CA, DC, FL, IA, ID, IL, LA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC ( Doby 2016), ND, NE, NJ ( Moskowitz 2011), NY, OK, OR, PA, SD, TX (Kelley and Mills 2010), WA, WY. Extra-limital distribution: Europe; a Holarctic species. Immatures: Bugnion and du Buysson (1924); Böving and Craighead (1931); Wood (1965); Neumann and Piechocki (1985); Riley (1888). Biology: Piechocki (1959); Janzen (1963); Wood (1965); Waage (1979); Winter (1979). Ectoparasitic. Hosts: The American beaver, C. Canadensis , and the European beaver, Castor fiber Linnaeus. Belfiore (2006) recorded a capture of the beetle on the North American river otter in California, but it seems that this is a minor secondary host if not an accidental record. Peck (2006) developed an argument that the Eurasian populations may represent a cryptic species different from the one named for North America, and preliminary DNA barcode data (SBP, unpublished) support this.

= P. castorinus Westwood, 1869: 119 ; Ritsema 1869b: [38] (synonymy). Syntypes probably in OXUM. Type locality: not stated, but presumably North America (found on C. canadensis ).