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Issue: Vol. 7 No. 3: June 2024
Type: Correspondence
Published: 2024-06-29
DOI: 10.11646/palaeoentomology.7.3.4
Page range: 349-352
Abstract views: 100
PDF downloaded: 2

Early Cretaceous nepomorph bugs from the Wealden of the Weald

State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Nanjing 210008, China; Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Nanjing 210008, China
Early Cretaceous nepomorph bugs from the Wealden of the Weald

Abstract

True bugs (Heteroptera) are uncommon in the Lower Cretaceous Wealden Group of southern England, being represented by occasional terrestrial and aquatic forms (Jarzembowski, 2011). None have been formally described, but a giant water bug (belostomatid) and a saucer bug (naucorid) have been figured from the Weald Clay Formation (Jarzembowski & Coram, 1997: fig. 10; Austen et al., 2011: fig. 5, respectively). The former was considered closely allied to a stygeonepine from the Las Hoyas Konservat-Lagerstätte in eastern Spain and was subsequently reconstructed as Iberonepa sp. (Jarzembowski & Jarzembowski, 2019: fig. 3). Here we report two new nepomorphs, a patterned creeping water bug (naucorid) from the lower Weald Clay and the first Wealden toad bug, adding an ochteroid to the palaeoentomofauna—the largest and oldest gelastocorid known to date.

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