First fossil species of puppet beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionoidea, Aderidae) from the lowermost Eocene Oise amber (France), with a review of the fossil record of Aderidae

The Aderidae is a moderately diverse family of small tenebrionoid beetles whose fossil record remains sparse and unevenly documented, despite recent progress in the systematics of the group. With the notable exception of one fossil species from the Late Cretaceous Kachin amber, and some earlier but as yet undescribed aderid occurrences reported from Lebanese and Spanish ambers, the formal fossil record of the family remains sparse and is otherwise largely restricted to late Eocene ambers, which limits our understanding of the early evolutionary history and temporal diversification of the group. Here, a new species is described, † Cnopus twentyonepilotorum Ferreira & Nel, sp. nov . from the lowermost Eocene Oise amber of Le Quesnoy (France), one of the oldest Cenozoic amber deposits in Europe. Although Aderidae have already been reported from the Oise amber, the present specimen represents the first record of this family formally described from this deposit. We further discuss how the current fossil record of the family informs about hypotheses on their origin and diversification. The occurrence of the family in the Oise amber is consistent with the warm, humid forest palaeoecosystem inferred for this deposit.