A New Agyrtid Beetle (Coleoptera, Agyrtidae) from the Lower Cretaceous Khasurty Locality
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w Agyrtid Beetle (Coleoptera, Agyrtidae) from the Lower Cretaceous Khasurty Locality O. D. Strelnikovaa, *, E. V. Yana, **, and D. V. Vasilenkoa, b aBorissiak
Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia b Cherepovets State University, Cherepovets, Russia *e-mail: [email protected] **e-mail: [email protected]
Received November 25, 2019; revised January 21, 2020; accepted January 21, 2020
Abstract—The first fossil monotypic genus of the subfamily Necrophilinae (Coleoptera, Agyrtidae), Palaeonecrophilus buryaticus gen. et sp. nov., is described from a positive and negative imprint found at the Early Cretaceous Khasurty locality in Western Transbaikalia. The beetle is similar to modern Necrophilinae in the presence of notches on the apical antennomeres and the wide and flattened edges of the pronotum. It is distinguished from the modern species by the strong anterior protrusion of the anterior pronotal angles and the oblique orientation of the metanepisterna. Widely spaced anterior coxae with a process between them distinguish the new species from the representatives of the genus Necrophilus. Palaeonecrophilus presumably fed on carrion, like modern Necrophilus and Zeanecrophilus. Keywords: Coleoptera, Agyrtidae, Necrophilinae, Palаeonecrophilus, Transbaikalia, beetles, Lower Cretaceous, new taxon, fossil insects DOI: 10.1134/S003103012006009X
INTRODUCTION The family Agyrtidae belongs to the superfamily Staphylinoidea (Coleoptera, Staphylinoidea), the most species-rich beetle superfamily. Staphylinoidea includes seven families, more than 78000 recent species, and approximately 650 fossil species (Grebennikov, 2016; Newton, 2017). The most ancient putative Staphylinoidea was described from the Lower Triassic, but has recently been suggested to be a myxophagan beetle (Chatzimanolis et al., 2012; Fikaček et al., 2019). Agyrtidae are a rather small family compared to some other groups of Staphylinoidea: the family includes three subfamilies, eight recent genera, and 72 species (Newton, 2016). The find of Palaeonecrophilus gen. nov. with the details preserved is of additional significance, because Agyrtidae have been proposed as the basal clade for all other Staphylinoidea families in the most recent phylogenetic studies (Arnett and Thomas, 2000; Newton, 2016). The validation of these results, which were mostly obtained by cladistic analysis, using actual fossil material, appears to hold great potential.The majority of modern Agyrtidae are found in the Holarctic, with the exception of two species found in New Zealand. They occur both in the warm tropical climate of East Asia and Mexico and in cold climates, for instance, at the tree-line at high altitudes; the distribution ranges of these species are often disjunctive. The representatives of this family
feed on various decomposing substrates, such as carrion, dung, decomposing fruiting bodies of mushrooms, and washed up algae, but some species consume leaves and flowers, and some predatory forms have been reported (Newton, 2016). There are few
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