Lepicerus

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Lepicerus
Temporal range: Cenomanian–Recent
Lepicerus inaequalis.jpg
Lepicerus inaequalis
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Suborder: Myxophaga
Superfamily: Lepiceroidea
Hinton, 1936
Family: Lepiceridae
Hinton, 1936
Genus: Lepicerus
Motschulsky, 1855
Synonyms
Family synonymy
  • Cyathoceridae Sharp, 1882
  • Haplochelidae Kirejtshuk and Poinar, 2006
Genus synonymy
  • CyathocerusSharp, 1882
  • HaplochelusKirejtshuk and Poinar, 2006
  • LepiceroidesKirejtshuk and Poinar, 2013
  • LepichelusKirejtshuk and Poinar, 2017

Lepicerus is a genus of myxophagan beetles containing three described species in the family Lepiceridae; it is the only extant genus in the family, with another genus, Lepiceratus only known from fossils. [1] [2] Extant species occur in the Neotropics, from Mexico south to Venezuela and Ecuador. Fossils referrable to the genus are known from the early Late Cretaceous of Southeast Asia.

Contents

Species

Three additional species are known from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) as inclusions in Burmese amber from Myanmar.

Extinct Lepiceridae genera

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2015 in paleoentomology is a list of new fossil insect taxa that were described during the year 2016, as well as other significant discoveries and events related to paleoentomology that were scheduled to occur during the year.

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Bukhkalius is an extinct genus of beetle belonging to the family Ommatidae, it contains the single species, Bukhkalius lindae. It was described in 2017 initially as a species of the extant genus Tetraphalerus and was placed into a separate monotypic genus in 2020, which was reaffirmed in a 2021 study. It is known from a single specimen from Burmese amber, dating to the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. The specimen is around 4.7 mm long and around 1.3 mm wide.

Burmese amber is fossil resin dating to the early Late Cretaceous Cenomanian age recovered from deposits in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar. It is known for being one of the most diverse Cretaceous age amber paleobiotas, containing rich arthropod fossils, along with uncommon vertebrate fossils and even rare marine inclusions. A mostly complete list of all taxa described up until 2018 can be found in Ross 2018; its supplement Ross 2019b covers most of 2019.

Lepidomma is an extinct genus of ommatid beetle. The genus was first described in 2019 for the species L. tianae. Lepidomma was synonymised with Clessidromma by Kirejtshuk, 2020. This synonymy was disputed by Li et al. (2021), who maintained Lepidomma as a separate genus from Clessidromma. Three additional species of Lepidomma were described in 2020 and 2022. All four species are known from the Cenomanian aged Burmese amber of Myanmar.

References

  1. Ge, S.-Q.; Friedrich, F. & Beutel, R. G. (2010). "On the systematic position and taxonomic rank of the extinct myxophagan †Haplochelus (Coleoptera)". Insect Systematics & Evolution. 41 (4): 329–338. doi : 10.1163/187631210X537385
  2. 1 2 Jałoszyński, Paweł; Luo, Xiao-Zhu; Hammel, Jörg U.; Yamamoto, Shûhei & Beutel, Rolf G. (2020). "The mid-Cretaceous †Lepiceratus gen. nov. and the evolution of the relict beetle family Lepiceridae (Insecta: Coleoptera: Myxophaga)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 18 (13). doi : 10.1080/14772019.2020.1747561
  3. Kirejtshuk, A.G.; Poinar, G. Jr. (2006). "Haplochelidae, a new family of Cretaceous beetles (Coleoptera: Myxophaga) from Burmese amber". Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. 108: 155–164.
  4. Jałoszyński, Paweł; Yamamoto, Shûhei; Takahashi, Yui (October 2017). "Discovery of a new Mesozoic species of the ancient genus Lepicerus (Coleoptera: Myxophaga: Lepiceridae), with implications for the systematic placement of all previously described extinct 'lepiceroids'". Cretaceous Research. 78: 95–102. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2017.06.001.
  5. A. G. Kirejtshuk and G. Poinar. 2013. On the systematic position of the genera Lepiceroides gen. n. and Haplochelus, with notes on the taxonomy and phylogeny of the Myxophaga (Coleoptera). In D. Azar, M. Engel, E. Jarzembowski, L. Krogmann, A. Nel, J. Santiago-Blay (eds.), Insect Evolution in an Ambiferous and Stone Alphabet 55-69