New Mesozoic Mesopsychidae(Mecoptera)from Northeastern China |
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| Authors: | REN Dong Conrad CLABANDEIRA SHIH ChungKun |
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| Institution: | 1. College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China;2. Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20013, USA;3. Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA |
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| Abstract: | The Mesozoic family Mesopsychidae Tillyard, 1917 presently consists of seven described genera and 13 species from the mid‐Triassic to the Early Cretaceous of Australia, South Africa and Eurasia. In the present paper one new genus and three new species of fossil mesopsychids are described that add significant distributional and stratigraphic extensions to the family. This finding documents the first formal record of fossil Mesopsychidae in China. Both Lichnomesopsyche gloriae gen. et sp. nov. and L. daohugouensis gen. et sp. nov. were found from the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation of Inner Mongolia, whereas Vitimopsyche kozlovi sp. nov., of mid Early Cretaceous age, was collected from the Jehol Biota of northern Hebei Province. This new, well‐preserved material from China reveals complete and previously unknown body features, including head, antennae, mouthparts, legs and abdomen. The delicate and long proboscides of these new taxa indicate that they were feeding on externally exposed, nutrient‐rich fluids of gymnospermous ovulate fructifications, and incapable of piercing surface epidermis – attributable principally to the absence of stylets. These proboscides originated, perhaps multiply, among basal Mecoptera and are functionally and structurally convergent with equivalent mouthparts borne by fossil and extant Diptera, Lepidoptera, Neuroptera and Coleoptera. |
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| Keywords: | Mecoptera Mesopsychidae plant‐insect associations diet new genus new species proboscis Jurassic structural convergence China |
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