Platypus cylindrus (Fabricius, 1792)

Beaver, Roger A., Ghahari, Hassan & Sanguansub, Sunisa, 2016, An annotated checklist of Platypodinae and Scolytinae (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) from Iran, Zootaxa 4098 (3), pp. 401-441 : 403

Platypus cylindrus (Fabricius, 1792)

Distribution in Iran. Guilan ( Modarres Awal 1997; Borumand 1998), Mazandaran and other northern provinces ( Modarres Awal 1997), Iran (no locality cited) ( Knížek 2011).

General distribution. Central and South Europe, North Africa, extending East to the Caucasus.

Biology. Like the majority of Platypus species, it is polyphagous. In Iran the following host plants have been recorded: Carpinus betulus (Betulaceae) , Castanea sativa (Fagaceae) , Fagus orientalis (Fagaceae) , Fraxinus excelsior (Oleaceae) , Populus sp. ( Salicaceae ), Quercus sp. ( Fagaceae ), Ulmus spp . ( Ulmaceae ) ( Modarres Awal 1997). The biology of the species has been studied by Baker (1963), Belhoucine et al. (2011a), and others. The mycangia have been described by Cassier et al. (1996). It usually attacks stressed or dead trees. In the Mediterranean region, the species is involved in “oak decline”, especially where Quercus trees are stressed (e.g. De Sousa & Incio 2005; Sall et al. 2014). The associated ambrosia fungi belong to the genus Raffaelea ( Inácio et al. 2008) , but numerous other genera of fungi have been found associated with the adult beetles and their galleries (e.g. Belhoucine et al. 2011b; Inácio et al. 2011a). It carries the canker fungus causing cork oak ( Quercus suber ) charcoal canker ( Inácio et al. 2011b), and is also a likely vector of a fungus causing the death of plane trees ( Platanus orientalis ) in the Mediterranean area and Iran ( Soulioti et al. 2015).