Overview

The only known Australian species, Monomma australe , is known only from the type, which has no definite type locality (Freude 1955); it is closely related to the Indian M. brunneum , the larvae of which are known to feed in the rotten stems of pawpaw (Fletcher 1916).

Description

Ovate beetles, moderately convex above and below, black in colour and subglabrous. Eyes very large and subcontiguous dorsally; antennal insertions concealed and antennae housed in grooves in hypomera; elytral epipleura are moderately broad and complete; elytral punctation is seriate; first 2 or 3 tarsal segments densely pilose beneath; last ventrite with a deep, curved, transverse groove.

Larvae elongate, parallel-sided and somewhat flattened with widely separated urogomphi with a broad pit between them. Paired endocarinae located between frontal arms; mandible bears row of hyaline teeth in molar region; mala is truncate and cleft; and T2 to T6 or T7 each have a double row of asperities forming an incomplete transverse ring on each side of the midline.