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.
Prostomidae is a family of beetles with no vernacular common name, though recent authors have coined the name jugular-horned beetles. They are often found in dead wood. The family consist of two extant genera with about 20 species. Prostomis americanus is known from North America. Other species of Prostomis are found in Europe, Africa, the Pacific region and East Asia. Species of Dryocora are known from New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania.
The Stephanidae, sometimes called crown wasps, are a family of parasitoid wasps. They are the only living members of the superfamily Stephanoidea. Stephanidae 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.
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 Xiphocentronidae are a family of caddisflies. It has previously been treated as a subfamily of Psychomyiidae, and has a broad distribution, including parts of Asia, Central Africa and the Americas. It contains nine genera, in three subfamilies: Since the subgenus Cnodocentron (Caenocentron) was elevated to genus level; and the Cretaceous fossil genus Palerasnitsynus was moved from Psychomyiidae to a new subfamily within Xiphocentronidae.
Baltic amber or succinite is amber from the Baltic region, home of its largest known deposits. It was produced sometime during the Eocene epoch, but exactly when is controversial. It has been estimated that this forested region provided the resin for 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 and 400 tonnes in 2015. Baltic amber is also found in Poland, as well as the Baltic states.
The Nevrorthidae are a small family of lacewings in the order Neuroptera. 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 are traditionally placed in the Osmyloidea, alongside Osmylidae and the spongillaflies (Sisyridae), but some research has considered them to be the sister group to the rest of Neuroptera. The larvae have unique straight jaws that are curved at the tips, and live as unspecialised predators in the sandy bottom sediments of clear, fast flowing mountain rivers and streams. They pupate underwater on the underside of stones. The adults are likely predators or feed on honeydew and other sugar-rich fluids.
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: Members of the genus are parasitic of psychomyiid caddisflies.
Callipodida is an order of millipedes containing around 130 species, many characterized by crests or ridges.
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 from the Middle Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous.
Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. 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 the potential role of the amber trade in funding internal conflict in Myanmar and hazardous working conditions in the mines where it is collected.
This list of fossil arthropods described in 2011 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 2011. The list only includes taxa at the level of genus or species.
Throscidae is a family of elateroid beetles found worldwide with around 150 species in 5 extant genera. The larvae are soil-dwelling, siphoning fluid from mycorrhizae attached to trees. The adults are short-lived, with the adult males being noted for a complex mating dance. Like some other elateroids, they are capable of clicking.
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 to the end of 2023 can be found in Ross (2024).
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, these were initially suggested to have been evolved in parallel evolution from hairs or setae, but a later study suggested that the scales of all amphiesmenopterans are homologous, sharing a common origin. Their flattened morphology and small size suggest 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 to the end of 2023 can be found in Ross (2024).
The Prussian Formation, previously known as the Amber Formation, is a geologic formation in Prussia, today mostly Kaliningrad Oblast that dates to the Eocene. It holds 90% of the world's amber supply and Baltic amber is found exclusively in the Prussian Formation.
