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Extralimital fossils of the "Gondwanan" family Sphaeropsocidae (Insecta, Psocodea)

by: Grimaldi, David A

Publication date: 2006

Usage: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Publisher: New York, NY : American Museum of Natural History

Collection: americanmuseumnaturalhistory; biodiversity

Contributor: American Museum of Natural History Library

Language: English

Rights: http://biodiversitylibrary.org/permissions

Rights-holder: American Museum of Natural History Library

Volume: no. 3523

18 p. : 26 cm

Two new species and genera of minute, coleopteriform psocopterans, family Sphaeropsocidae (Nanopsocetae), are described from fossils preserved in Cretaceous ambers: Sphaeropsocoides canadensis Grimaldi and Engel, n.gen., n.sp., from the Campanian of western Canada; and Sphaeropsocites lebanensis Grimaldi and Engel, n.gen., n.sp., from the Neocomian of Lebanon. These are the first described Mesozoic species of the family. Sphaeropsocus kuenowii Hagen in mid-Eocene Baltic amber is redescribed in detail. The 14 described Recent species of the family (in the genera Sphaeropsocopsis and Badonnelia) have natural distributions that are largely restricted to southern portions of the Southern Hemisphere, but Eocene and now Cretaceous fossils reveal a formerly global distribution of the family. Hypothesized relationships of the five genera indicate basal positions of the fossil genera, and probably an entirely Tertiary age of the Recent genera Sphaeropsocopsis and Badonnelia, which would thus be too young for these two genera to have been affected by gondwanan drift

Caption title

"July 31, 2006."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 16-18)

Abstract: Two new species and genera of minute, coleopteriform psocopterans, family Sphaeropsocidae (Nanopsocetae), are described from fossils preserved in Cretaceous ambers: Sphaeropsocoides canadensis Grimaldi and Engel, n.gen., n.sp., from the Campanian of western Canada; and Sphaeropsocites lebanensis Grimaldi and Engel, n.gen., n.sp., from the Neocomian of Lebanon. These are the first described Mesozoic species of the family. Sphaeropsocus kuenowii Hagen in mid-Eocene Baltic amber is redescribed in detail. The 14 described Recent species of the family (in the genera Sphaeropsocopsis and Badonnelia) have natural distributions that are largely restricted to southern portions of the Southern Hemisphere, but Eocene and now Cretaceous fossils reveal a formerly global distribution of the family. Hypothesized relationships of the five genera indicate basal positions of the fossil genera, and probably an entirely Tertiary age of the Recent genera Sphaeropsocopsis and Badonnelia, which would thus be too young for these two genera to have been affected by gondwanan drift.