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Issue: Vol. 77 No. 1: 31 Dec. 2025
Type: Article
Published: 2025-12-31
DOI: 10.12976/jib/2025.77.1.9
Page range: 50-59
Abstract views: 40
PDF downloaded: 25

Carrion beetles from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of northeastern China (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Silphinae)

State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
burying beetles fossil Cretaceous Jehol Biota palaeodiversity

Abstract

Recent phylogenetic work has placed the family Silphidae within Staphylinidae as subfamily Silphinae. Despite this taxonomic progress, the early fossil record and the evolution of Silphinae remain incompletely understood. Here I describe Paracretosaja gen. nov. (type species: Paracretosaja newtoni sp. nov.) and Cretosaja thayerae sp. nov., based on well-preserved compression fossils from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation (Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, northeastern China). Both new taxa possess paired stridulatory files on abdominal tergite V and a distinct, straight frontoclypeal suture that permit confident placement in the extant tribe Nicrophorini. An examination of new specimens of Cretosaja Sohn & Nam corrects several earlier character interpretations for C. jinjuensis Sohn & Nam. The presence of derived nicrophorines in multiple Early Cretaceous localities, together with slightly younger records from the Jinju Formation of South Korea, indicates a broad geographic distribution of Nicrophorini in eastern Asia. These fossils document that traits associated with communication and parental provisioning were established by the Early Cretaceous, and they imply that carrion-feeding beetles had already assumed important roles in nutrient recycling and terrestrial ecosystem functioning during the Mesozoic.

 

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