Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 6 No. 3: June 2023
Type: Short Communication
Published: 2023-06-19
DOI: 10.11646/palaeoentomology.6.3.8
Page range: 255–259
Abstract views: 265
PDF downloaded: 12

The first British Cretaceous eomeropid scorpionfly (Mecoptera: Eomeropidae)

Borissiak Palaeontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117647, Russia
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China; Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
Eomeropidae Mecoptera Cretaceous Weald Clay wing venation

Abstract

Eomeropidae is a relict family of Mecoptera with the sole living species, Notiothauma reedi McLachlan, 1877, inhabiting western parts of southern Chilean Valdivian forests. The family was more widely distributed in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, being known from 13 fossil species ranging in age from Early Jurassic to Oligocene (Soszyńska-Maj et al., 2016; Archibald & Rasnitsyn, 2018; Zhao et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2022). The oldest fossil eomeropid, Jurachorista bashkuevi Soszyńska-Maj, Krzemiński, Kopeć & Coram, 2016, was described from the Lower Jurassic Charmouth Mudstone Formation of Dorset and so far is the only find of the family in Britain and in Europe. Here we report the second one, from the Lower Cretaceous (lower Barremian) upper Weald Clay Formation of Smokejacks brickworks, Surrey. The new species is most closely allied to Jurathauma Zhang, Shih, Petrulevičius & Ren, 2011 and Typhothauma Ren & Shih, 2005 from the Middle Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of China respectively. However, the incomplete preservation hampers its generic identification, although the type locality is an active site (Jarzembowski, 2021) and additional material may be recovered in future.

References

  1. Allen, P. (1976) Wealden of the Weald: a new model. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 86 (4), 389–437. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7878(75)80057-5

  2. Austen, P.A. & Batten, D.J. (2018) English Wealden fossils: an update. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 129 (2), 171–201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pgeola.2018.02.007

  3. Austen, P. & Jarzembowski, E. (2018) Field meeting report: ‘Smokejacks’ brickworks—2018. Hastings and District Geological Society Journal, 24, 17–19.

  4. Austen, P. & Jarzembowski, E. (2019) Field meeting report: ‘Smokejacks’ brickworks—2019. Hastings and District Geological Society Journal, 25, 25–28.

  5. Archibald, S.B. & Rasnitsyn, A.P. (2018) Two new species of fossil Eomerope (Mecoptera: Eomeropidae) from the Ypresian Okanagan Highlands, far-western North America, and Eocene Holarctic dispersal of the genus. Canadian Entomologist, 150 (3), 393–403. https://doi.org/10.4039/tce.2018.13

  6. Crampton, G.C. (1930) The wings of the remarkable archaic mecopteron Notiothauma reedi McLachlan with remarks on their protoblattoid affinities. Psyche, 37 (1), 83–103. https://doi.org/10.1155/1930/53195

  7. Jarzembowski, E.A. (1995) Early Cretaceous insect faunas and palaeoenvironment. Cretaceous Research, 16 (6), 681–693.  https://doi.org/10.1006/cres.1995.1042

  8. Jarzembowski, E.A. (2021) Fossil insects 10 years after the Geological Conservation Review (Great Britain). Palaeoentomology, 4 (4), 313–318. https://doi.org/10.11646/palaeoentomology.4.4.3

  9. Novokshonov, V.G., Ross, A.J., Cook, E., Krzemiński, W. & Soszyńska-Maj, A. (2016) A new family of scorpionflies (Insecta; Mecoptera) from the Lower Cretaceous of England. Cretaceous Research, 62, 44–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2016.01.013

  10. Peña, L.E. (1967) Ambiente y comportamiento de Notiothauma reedi McLachlan (Mecoptera, Notiothaumidae). Noticiario Mensual del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, 133, 9.

  11. Ren, D. & Shih, C.K. (2005) The first discovery of fossil eomeropids from China (Insecta, Mecoptera). Acta Zootaxonomica Sinica, 30 (2), 275–280.

  12. Soszyńska-Maj, A., Krzemiński, W., Kopeć, K. & Coram, R.A. (2016) Phylogenetic relationships within the relict family Eomeropidae (Insecta, Mecoptera) based on the oldest fossil from the Early Jurassic (Sinemurian) of Dorset, southern England. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 14 (12), 1025–1031. https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2016.1139007

  13. Taylor, K. (1991) Phosphatic concretions in the Wealden of South-East England. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 102 (1), 67–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7878(08)80058-2

  14. Zhang, J.X., Shih, C.K., Petrulevičius, J.F. & Ren, D. (2011) A new fossil eomeropid (Insecta, Mecoptera) from the Jiulongshan Formation, Inner Mongolia, China. Zoosystema, 33 (4), 443–450. https://doi.org/10.5252/z2011n4a2

  15. Zhang, J.X., Shih, C.K. & Ren, D. (2012) A new fossil eomeropid (Insecta, Mecoptera) from the Yixian Formation, Liaoning, China. Acta Zootaxonomica Sinica, 37 (1), 68–71.

  16. Zhang, K., Zhao, X.D., Bashkuev, A.S. & Xiao, C.T. (2022) The first eomeropid (Insecta, Mecoptera) from mid-Cretaceous Myanmar amber. Cretaceous Research, 133, 105140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2022.105140

  17. Zhao, X.D., Zhao, X.Y., Chen, L., Zhang, Q. & Wang, B. (2019) A new species of Eomeropidae (Insecta: Mecoptera) from the Middle Jurassic of China. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 130 (6), 691–695. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pgeola.2019.10.005