An Enigmatic Cretaceous Beetle in Kachin Amber With Tentative Affinities to Pythidae (Coleoptera: Tenebrionoidea)
Tenebrionoids are not uncommon in late Mesozoic ambers, but their paleodiversity remains poorly explored, partly due to the insufficiently defined families of the extant fauna. Here, we describe and illustrate a new tenebrionoid beetle from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber, <i>Glyphonotum hsiaoi</i> gen. et sp. nov., which exhibits an unusual form of pronotal sulcus and tarsi. Based on morphological comparison and phylogenetic analyses, we tentatively place <i>Glyphonotum</i> in the extant family Pythidae, representing the first Mesozoic fossil of this family.
Authors
- Darren A. Pollock (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8709-0269)
- Diying Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5637-4867)
- Yanda Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9439-202X)
- M. Andrew Johnston (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0166-6985)
- Chenyang Cai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9283-8323)
Institutions
- Eastern New Mexico University (US)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Purdue University West Lafayette (US)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Ecology and Evolution
- Published
- 2024-12-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70615
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Fossil Insects in Amber
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.03
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Scholarship Council