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Issue: Vol. 7 No. 4: August 2024
Type: Correspondence
Published: 2024-08-30
DOI: 10.11646/palaeoentomology.7.4.5
Page range: 468-471
Abstract views: 162
PDF downloaded: 16

First female of Eomeropidae (Mecoptera) from Kachin amber sheds light on morphology and environmental preferences of eomeropids in the Cretaceous

University of Lodz, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology, Banacha 12/16, 90-237 Lodz, Poland
School of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China; State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
University of Lodz, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology, Banacha 12/16, 90-237 Lodz, Poland
Mecoptera Eomeropidae Kachin amber taxonomy

Abstract

Family Eomeropidae is a relict and species-poor family of scorpionflies (Mecoptera), encompassing 16 species within seven genera. Although this family was more diverse in the past, with nine species known from the Mesozoic and six from the Cenozoic (Cockerell, 1909; Ponomarenko & Rasnitsyn, 1974; Archibald et al., 2005; Ren & Shih, 2005; Zhang et al., 2011; Soszyńska-Maj et al., 2016; Archibald & Rasnitsyn, 2018; Bashkuev & Jarzembowski, 2023), only one extant species exists today: Notiothauma reedi MacLachlan, 1877, found in the rainforests of southwestern Chile (Table 1). Notably, this species does not exhibit the typical appearance of a scorpionfly; rather, it resembles a cockroach, with a flattened body, with dense venation on heavily sclerotized wings, and robust, spined legs adapted for ground-dwelling activities such as burrowing in soil, litter, and beneath bark. An apomorphy of the wing venation in this species is the close proximity of the radial vein bifurcation and the medial vein, termed the ‘eomeropid triadic branch’.

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