Alexandr Pavlovich Rasnitsyn is a Russian entomologist, expert in palaeoentomology, and Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation (2001). His scientific interests are centered on the palaeontology, phylogeny, and taxonomy of hymenopteran insects and insects in general. He has also studied broader biological problems such as evolutionary theory, the principles of phylogenetics, taxonomy, nomenclature, and palaeoecology. He has published over 300 articles and books in several languages. In August 2008 he was awarded the Distinguished Research Medal of the International Society of Hymenopterists.
The Stephanidae, sometimes called crown wasps, are a family of parasitoid wasps placed in the superfamily Stephanoidea, which has at least 345 living species in 11 genera. The family is considered cosmopolitan in distribution, with the highest species concentrations in subtropical and moderate climate zones. Stephanidae also contain four extinct genera described from both compression fossils and inclusions in amber.
Archaeidae, also known as assassin spiders and pelican spiders, is a spider family with about ninety described species in five genera. It contains small spiders, ranging from 2 to 8 millimetres long, that prey exclusively on other spiders. They are unusual in that they have "necks", ranging from long and slender to short and fat. The name "pelican spider" refers to these elongated jaws and necks used to catch their prey. Living species of Archaeidae occur in South Africa, Madagascar and Australia, with the sister family Mecysmaucheniidae occurring in southern South America and New Zealand.
David A. Grimaldi is an entomologist and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He received his graduate training at Cornell University, where he earned his doctorate in Entomology in 1986. Dr. Grimaldi is an authority in many fields of insect systematics, paleontology, and evolutionary biology.
The Psychomyiidae are a family of tube-making caddisflies. Members of this family are typically very similar to polycentropodids, most of them can be differentiated by the spur formula is 2-4-4, thyridial cell short, absence of the forewing fork I, and hindwing forks I and IV. Male genitalia has elongate preanal appendages, and reduced tergum IX. The larvae differ by the submental sclerites separated, foretrochantin broad, and the pupal mandible apex whip-like. Larvae construct long silken galleries.
The Baltic region is home to the largest known deposit of amber, called Baltic amber or succinite. It dates from 44 million years ago. It has been estimated that these forests created more than 100,000 tons of amber. Today, more than 90% of the world's amber comes from Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. It is a major source of income for the region; the local Kaliningrad Amber Combine extracted 250 tonnes of it in 2014, 400 tonnes in 2015.
The Nevrorthidae, often incorrectly spelled "Neurorthidae", are a small family of winged insects of the order Neuroptera. Extant species may be described as living fossils. There are 19 extant species in four genera, with a geographically disjunct distribution, Nevrorthus, comprising 5 species with scattered distributions around the Mediterranean, Austroneurorthus with two species known from southeastern Australia, Nipponeurorthus comprising 11 species known from China and Japan, and Sinoneurorthus known from a single species described from Yunnan Province, China. They were at one time placed in the Osmyloidea, with the Osmylidae and the spongillaflies (Sisyridae) as their closest relatives, but nowadays they are considered to be the most ancient lineage of living lacewings. Sometimes they are placed in a suborder Nevrorthiformia, but the quite basal position of the family is probably better expressed by placing them directly in the Neuroptera, without assigning the subordinal rank.
Culoptila is a genus of caddisflies found primarily in Central America as well as the United States.
Buchonomyia is the only extant genus of the subfamily Buchonomyiinae of the non-biting midge family Chironomidae. There are three known extant species and one fossil species in the genus:
Diplatyidae is a family of earwigs in the suborder Neodermaptera. It contains only one subfamily, Diplatyinae, which contains six genera, five modern and one extinct known from fossils. The genus Tytthodiplatys was described in 2011 from a fossil found in Burmese amber which dates to the Albian age of the Cretaceous. It was not placed into the subfamily Diplatyinae, and is the oldest confirmed member of the family.
Astreptolabis is an extinct genus of earwig in the Dermaptera family Pygidicranidae known from a group of Cretaceous fossils found in Myanmar. The genus contains two described species, Astreptolabis ethirosomatia and Astreptolabis laevis and is the sole member of the subfamily Astreptolabidinae.
Dysoneuridae is an extinct family of insect in the order Trichoptera, the caddisflies. The family was first described by I.D. Sukacheva in 1968, and lived in the Mesozoic era between 164.7 mya to 125.45 mya. Members of this family lived in lagoons, ponds, and terrestrial habitats.
Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 99 million years old, during the earliest part of the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous. The amber is of significant palaeontological interest due to the diversity of flora and fauna contained as inclusions, particularly arthropods including insects and arachnids but also birds, lizards, snakes, frogs and fragmentary dinosaur remains. The amber has been known and commercially exploited since the first century AD, and has been known to science since the mid-nineteenth century. Research on the deposit has attracted controversy due to its alleged role in funding internal conflict in Myanmar and hazardous working conditions in the mines where it is collected.
This list of fossil arthropods described in 2012 is a list of new taxa of trilobites, fossil insects, crustaceans, arachnids and other fossil arthropods of every kind that have been described during the year 2012. The list only includes taxa at the level of genus or species.
Cretapsyche is an extinct genus of caddisflies in the extinct family Dysoneuridae. It is from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) and specimens are from Burmese amber.
2018 in paleoentomology is a list of new fossil insect taxa that were described during the year 2018, as well as other significant discoveries and events related to paleoentomology that were scheduled to occur during the year.
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.
Tarachoptera is an extinct order of insects, currently solely known from the mid Cretaceous aged Burmese amber. It belongs to Amphiesmenoptera alongside living Lepidopterans and Trichoptera (caddiesflies), but is outside the clade containing the two groups, with an estimated divergence during the Upper Triassic, and therefore over a 100 million year ghost lineage. It currently contains only one family, the Tarachocelidae, which was named in a publication in 2017 a few months before the order itself was published. As the manuscript was in submission, an additional specimen belonging to a new genus justified creating a separate order. Additional species were described in 2018 and 2020. A notable character is the possession of wing scales like members of Lepidoptera, but these were suggested to have been evolved in parallel evolution from hairs or setae. Their flattened morphology and small size suggests they were adapted to living in small crevices; the morphology of the mouth suggests that they were phytophagous, and ingested small particles, perhaps including pollen grains.
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.
