Dematochroma
''Dematochroma'' is a genus of leaf beetles in the subfamily Eumolpinae. It is mostly distributed in New Caledonia, though it is also found on Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, Timor and Vanuatu. Adult beetles (usually less than 1 cm long) are often found at night feeding on leaves, and the larvae eat roots. Phylogeny Recent phylogenetic analyses of Eumolpinae of the south Pacific suggest that ''Dematochroma'' is paraphyly, paraphyletic: the type species, the Lord Howe endemic ''D. picea'', is placed in a clade including New Caledonian endemic genera ''Taophila'' and ''Tricholapita'', which is sister to another clade including other New Caledonian Eumolpinae genera, the New Caledonian species of ''Dematochroma'' as well as the New Zealand endemic ''Atrichatus''. Because of such findings, Gómez-Zurita and collaborators have preferred to transfer several New Caledonian species of ''Dematochroma'' to other genera. For instance, the genus ''Thasycles'' Chapuis, 1874, which was f ...
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