The eight spined larch bark beetles infest various species of Larix in Europe and Asia. Ips cembrae is the only Ips species with larch as its main host. Ips subelongatus, Ips fallax, Ips shinanonensis and Ips cembrae var. engadinensis are treated as synonyms of I. cembrae. These three putative species and the one variety are distinguished by their host tree and geographic distribution, as it is not possible to distinguish them on the basis of morphological differences. Beetles were collected from European and Asian populations, and from hosts and geographic areas where the species were first found and described and in their natural ranges of distribution. These beetles were used to study the phylogenetic relationships of the eight spined larch bark beetles. A region of the mitochondrial gene was analysed and the blue-stain fungi associated with I. cembrae in Europe were investigated and compared with those recorded as associated with the larch bark beetle in Japan. Only minor sequence differences were detected between the populations in Europe and Asia. However, the European populations differed by 4.3% from the Asian populations. The phylogenetic analysis placed the European and Asian haplotypes in significantly distinct clusters. This distinction was supported by the finding of an insertion/deletion in a non-coding region of the mitochondrial DNA. Furthermore, there are differences in the fungi associated with the eight spined larch bark beetles in Europe and Japan. The results suggest that the I. cembrae complex contains at least two taxa: I. cembrae infesting larch in Europe and I. subelongatus infesting larch in Asia.