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Issue: Vol. 4079 No. 4: 15 Feb. 2016
Type: Article
Published: 2016-02-15
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4079.4.5
Page range: 457–466
Abstract views: 71
PDF downloaded: 79

The Cretaceous Fossil Burmaculex antiquus Confirmed as the Earliest Known Lineage of Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae)

Research Associate, Royal British Columbia Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, 691-8th Ave. SE, Salmon Arm, British Columbia, V1E 2C2, Canada.
Curator, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th St., New York, New York, 10024-5192.
Diptera amber Burmese stem group aquatic Culicomorpha

Abstract

A second female of mid-Cretaceous Burmaculex antiquus Borkent & Grimaldi, preserved in 99 myo Burmese amber, and the oldest known member of the Culicidae, is described in detail. Although generally opaque and distorted, some character states are added or refined. The discovery of well-developed scales on the legs shows that this feature must now be considered a synapomorphy of both the fossil and all extant members of the family. Previously described synapomorphies and further interpretation here confirm the phylogenetic position of this fossil as the sister group to extant and all known fossil Culicidae. It is placed in the new subfamily Burmaculicinae.

 

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