Planolinellus Dellacasa and Dellacasa 2005
Planolinellus Dellacasa and Dellacasa 2005: 75.

Planolinellus vittatus (Say) Photo by P. Skelley.

Type species. Aphodius vittatus Say 1825: 191, by original designation.

Diagnosis. Body length 3.2-4.4 mm, elongate, parallel-sided, somewhat robust, black with reddish maculations on each elytron. Head with frontal suture pronounced bearing median tubercle. Clypeus alutaceous; anterior margin narrowly semicircular. Metatibial apical spinules short, equal in length.

Distribution. Palearctic (introduced?), North America into Mexico.

Composition. Planolinellus contains a single species.

Planolinellus vittatus (Say 1825: 191) [Aphodius], S-Canada to Mexico and Old World.
                  = Aphodius mundus Reitter 1892: 199.
                  = Aphodius niger Cockerell 1888: 6 [not Aphodius niger Panzer
                  1797].
                  = Aphodius nigromarginatus Cockerell 1888: 6.
                  = Aphodius rufoplagiatus Reitter 1892: 198.
                  = Aphodius sellatus Mannerheim 1852: 299.
                  = Aphodius semiruber Motschulsky 1860: 131.
                  = Aphodius tjanshanicus Balthasar 1956: 70.
                  = Aphodius vitiosus Reitter 1892: 199.
                  = Aphodius vittatus cockerelli Leng 1918: 207 [replacement
                  name for Aphodius niger Cockerell].

Life History. Adults are surface dung generalists.

Larvae. The larva of P. vittatus is described in Ritcher (1966).

References:
Dellacasa, M. and G. Dellacasa. 2005. Comments on some systematic and nomenclatural questions in Aphodiinae with descriptions of two new genera and on Italian taxa (Coleoptera: Aphodiidae). Memorie della Societa Entomologica Italiana 84: 45-101.
Gordon, R. D., and P. E. Skelley. 2007. A monograph of the Aphodiini inhabiting the United States and Canada (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Aphodiinae). Memoirs of the American Entomological Institute 79: 580 p.
Ritcher, P.O. 1966. White grubs and their allies: A study of North American scarabaeoid larvae. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, Oregon. Studies in Entomology 4: 219 pp.