Overview

Adults and larvae have been collected on or under the bark of standing trees or logs.

Description

Minute, broadly ovate and strongly flattened beetles, clothed with short, decumbent, scale-like setae and with large head and eyes, a median endocarina on pronotum, strongly transverse scutellum, enlarged, serrate tibial spur on each fore leg, and very widely separated coxae.

The presumed larva is elongate, slightly flattened and lightly sclerotised, with very short antennae, several hyaline processes at the base of the mesal edge of the mandible, paired parallel rods, as well as diverging hypostomal rods on the ventral side of the head, and a reduced and unsclerotised T9.

Distribution

The family is represented in Australia by several species of Propalticus from N.S.W. and Qld. The larva described as that of P. simplex by Crowson and Sen Gupta (1969) was misidentified. [John 1960.]