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Issue: Vol. 9 No. 4: August 2026
Type: Article
Published: 2026-08-28
DOI: 10.11646/palaeoentomology.9.4.6
Page range: 343-351
Abstract views: 177
PDF downloaded: 31

The first accurate fossil representative of Gynacantha (Odonata: Aeshnidae)

Laboratory of Nature Education and Conservation; Faculty of Biology; Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań; Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 6; PL-61-614 Poznań; Poland
Kościelna 41; PL-35-505 Rzeszów; Poland
Aleja Krzyżanowskiego 14/16; PL-35-329 Rzeszów; Poland
Institut de Systématique; Évolution; Biodiversité; ISYEB—UMR 7205—CNRS; MNHN; UPMC; EPHE; Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle; Sorbonne Universités; Université des Antilles; 57 rue Cuvier; CP 50; Entomologie; F-75005 Paris; France
Odonata Insecta Anisoptera ‘Gynacanthini’ new species palaeoclimate Oligocene Poland

Abstract

Gynacantha oligocenica sp. nov. is described from the Oligocene of Poland on the basis of a complete forewing. It is the first accurately described fossil representative of this genus and possibly of the ‘Gynacanthini’ Cockerell, 1913, even if another Gynacantha Rambur, 1842 is recorded from the Miocene Dominican amber, but still undescribed. It has important similarities with some American and Indo-Malaysian species of the extant genus, distributed in intertropical areas of all continents and locally reaching the subtropics. This discovery confirms that present south-eastern Poland knew a warm and humid, subtropical climate during the Oligocene, and that Gynacantha was much more widespread in the past than nowadays.

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