Ceratopogonidae is a family of flies commonly known as no-see-ums, or biting midges, generally 1–3 millimetres in length. The family includes more than 5,000 species, distributed worldwide, apart from the Antarctic and the Arctic.
Michael S. Engel, FLS, FRES is an American paleontologist and entomologist, notable for contributions to insect evolutionary biology and classification. In connection with his studies he has undertaken field expeditions in Central Asia, Asia Minor, the Levant, Arabia, eastern Africa, the high Arctic, and South and North America, and has published more than 860 papers in scientific journals and over 925 new living and fossil species. Some of Engel's research images were included in exhibitions on the aesthetic value of scientific imagery. Engel is the author of Innumerable Insects and co-author of Evolution of the Insects.
The Mymarommatoidea are a very small superfamily of microscopic fairyfly-like parasitic wasps. It contains only a single living family, Mymarommatidae, and three other extinct families known from Cretaceous aged amber. Less than half of all described species are living taxa, but they are known from all parts of the world. Undoubtedly, many more await discovery, as they are easily overlooked and difficult to study due to their extremely small size.
Psocomorpha is a suborder of barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice in the order Psocodea. There are more than 20 families and 5,300 described species in Psocomorpha.
Troctomorpha is one of the three major suborders of Psocodea (barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice), alongside Psocomorpha and Trogiomorpha. There are more than 30 families and 5,800 described species in Troctomorpha. The order includes parasitic lice, which are most closely related to the booklice family Liposcelididae.
Compsocidae is a family of Psocodea belonging to the suborder Troctomorpha. The family comprises two extant species in two genera, both found in Mesoamerica. Compsocus elegans is found in Mexico and Central America, while Electrentomopsis variegata is found in Mexico. The antennae of each species have 13 or 14 segments. Two extinct genera, Burmacompsocus and Paraelectrentomopsis are known from the Cenomanian aged Burmese amber of Myanmar.
Liposcelididae is a family of booklice of the order Psocodea, belonging to the suborder Troctomorpha. Members of this family are small and flattened, and often wingless.
The Berothidae are a family of winged insects of the order Neuroptera. They are known commonly as the beaded lacewings. The family was first named by Anton Handlirsch in 1906. The family consists of 24 genera and 110 living species distributed discontinuously worldwide, mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. Numerous extinct species have also been described. Their ecology is poorly known, but in the species where larval stages have been documented, the larvae are predators of termites.
Rhachiberothidae, sometimes called thorny lacewings, are a family of winged insects in the order Neuroptera. The family has only 14 extant species in 4 genera found in Sub-Saharan Africa, but has a diverse fossil record extending back to the Early Cretaceous in Lebanon, Eurasia and North America. Like the closely related Mantispidae members of the group possess raptorial forelegs, which probably only evolved once in the common ancestor of the groups.
The wingless insect order Notoptera, a group first proposed in 1915, had been largely unrecognized since its original conception, until resurrected in 2004. As now defined, the order comprises five families, three of them known only from fossils, two known from both fossil and living representatives, and fewer than 60 known species in total.
Paraneoptera or Acercaria is a superorder of insects which includes lice, thrips, and hemipterans, the true bugs. It also includes the extinct order Permopsocida, known from fossils dating from the Early Permian to the mid-Cretaceous.
Prionoglarididae is a family of the order Psocodea that are barklice characterized by the reduction or simplification of the lacinia in adults and the specialised form of the male genitalia. It contains the only known genus of animals, Neotrogla, where females possess a penis-like organ and take on typical male sex roles.
The Scolebythidae are a small family of aculeate wasps in the superfamily Chrysidoidea. These chrysidoid wasps are found in Africa, Australia, the Neotropics, north China, Thailand and Fiji. They are parasites on larvae of Cerambycidae and Ptinidae.
Spathiopterygidae is an extinct family of small parasitic wasps, known from the Cretaceous of Laurasia and Northern Gondwana. They are suggested to be members of Diaprioidea, in part due to their similarly reduced wing venation. Some members of the group reduced or lost the hindwings entirely.
New Jersey Amber, sometimes called Raritan amber, is amber found in the Raritan and Magothy Formations of the Central Atlantic (Eastern) coast of the United States. It is dated to the Late Cretaceous, Turonian age, based on pollen analysis of the host formations. It has been known since the 19th century, with several of the old clay-pit sites now producing many specimens for study. It has yielded a number of organism fossils, including fungi, plants, tardigrades, insects and feathers. The first identified Cretaceous age ant was described from a fossil found in New Jersey in 1966.
Psyllipsocidae is a family of cave barklice in the order Psocodea. There are about 7 genera and more than 70 described species in Psyllipsocidae.
The Gallorommatidae is an extinct family of microscopic parasitoid wasps, belonging to the Mymarommatoidea. It is known from several species found in Cretaceous aged amber.
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.
Manicapsocidae is a family of Psocodea. It contains 8 extant species in 4 genera, with most of the species being found in the Neotropics, with one species in the Afrotropics. The extinct family Electrentomidae has been suggested to be a synonym of this family, though this has been considered premature by other scholars in the absence of cladistic analysis. Confirmed fossil species of the family are nearly as numerous as living ones, extending back to the Mid-Cretaceous.
