A new and diverse paleofauna of the extinct snakefly family Baissopteridae from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar (Raphidiop
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A new and diverse paleofauna of the extinct snakefly family Baissopteridae from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar (Raphidioptera) Xiumei Lu 1,2 & Weiwei Zhang 3 & Bo Wang 4 & Michael S. Engel 5,6 & Xingyue Liu 1 Received: 21 April 2020 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 # Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik 2020
Abstract Raphidioptera (snakeflies) are the least diverse order among extant Holometabola, representing relicts of their rich Mesozoic paleofauna. Baissopteridae are one of the two major lineages from the Mesozoic, but with a poorly known evolutionary history. Here, we report the first fossil record of Baissopteridae from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar, represented by a diverse assemblage including 10 new species in six genera: Allobaissoptera oligophlebia gen. et sp. nov., Baissoptera burmana sp. nov., B. maculata sp. nov., B. monopoda sp. nov., B. pankowskiorum sp. nov., B. wangi sp. nov., Burmobiassoptera jiaxiaoae gen. et sp. nov., Electrobaissoptera burmanica gen. et sp. nov., Rhynchobaissoptera hui gen. et sp. nov., and Stenobaissoptera xiai gen. et sp. nov. The new Cretaceous baissopterids provide significant morphological evidence in favor of the monophyly of this family. The morphological diversity in these Cretaceous baissopterids, particularly with some specialized and unique characters, highlights the early radiation of snakeflies formed in the complex tropical forest ecosystem of the mid-Cretaceous. Keywords New taxon . Paleodiversity . Morphological modification . Systematic position
Introduction Raphidioptera (snakeflies) are the smallest holometabolous order, with only about 250 extant species (Engel et al. 2018). Adult snakeflies are characterized by a prognathous head, a slenderly elongate prothorax, the presence of a pigmented pterostigma, and a long ovipositor, while their larvae, with a terrestrial life-style, can be recognized by their elongate, flattened body, a prognathous head with chewing-mandibulate mouthparts, and a soft, 10-segmented abdomen. Both adults and larvae are entomophagous, preying on soft-bodied arthropods, but the adults have been found to feed on pollen as well
(Aspöck and Aspöck 2009). Raphidioptera belong to the superorder Neuropterida, and has been recovered as the sister group of Megaloptera + Neuroptera in many recent phylogenetic studies based on both morphological and molecular evidence (Aspöck et al. 2001; Aspöck and Aspöck 2008; Wang et al. 2017; Winterton et al. 2018; Vasilikopoulos et al. 2020). Recent snakeflies are considered to be a relict group, comprising only two families, i.e., Raphidiidae and Inocelliidae (Neoraphidioptera), and their distributions are confined to the Northern Hemisphere, in particular to the Holarctic region (Aspöck and Aspöck 2009). Conversely, Raphidioptera were much more diverse in the Mesozoic, documented by abundant
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-020-00455-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Xingyue Liu
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