Discovered in 2018 on a busy roadway in Boston by amateur occlupanologist T. McCormack. The discovery of a new Protocrena genus, after a long absence of discoveries, inspired curious HORG researchers to travel down into the dusty archives and revisit a collection of large Archignathids, all hastily identified as conspecifics of P. gigantis in the late ’90s.  Since occlupanologists have split taxa for smaller oral groove differentials in the past, it seemed well past time to give this similarly-sized, yet distinctive occlupanid its own species name. The oral groove depth for P. pachyplatus is measured at 13 mm.