New record of Mastotermitidae from Fonseca Basin, Eocene-Oligocene boundary of southeastern Brazil
- PDF / 1,087,582 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 31 Downloads / 203 Views
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
New record of Mastotermitidae from Fonseca Basin, Eocene-Oligocene boundary of southeastern Brazil Francisco Irineudo Bezerra 1
&
Márcio Mendes 1 & Og De Souza 2
Received: 10 December 2019 / Accepted: 31 January 2020 # Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2020
Abstract The first representative of the genus Mastotermes Froggatt, 1897 from the Cenozoic of the South America is described here based on seven specimens from the Fonseca Formation, Eocene-Oligocene boundary, Minas Gerais State, southeastern Brazil. Today, Mastotermes is geographically restricted to northern Australia, with only one relict species, Mastotermes darwiniensis Froggatt, 1897. However, its fossil record clearly shows a global distribution, with species ranging from the Cretaceous of Myanmar, Russia, Mongolia and China, throughout Cenozoic of mainland Europe and Miocene of Africa, Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. Along with Spagotermes costalimai Emerson, 1965, Mastotermes brasiliensis sp. n. is the second fossil termite recorded in the Fonseca strata. This discovery extends the paleo-distribution of this genus into Neotropical South America during the Paleogene. Keywords Fossil insect . Mastotermitid . Paleogene . Paleobiogeography . Paleoclimatology
Introduction Termites generally live in highly organized colonies with morphologically specialized castes (Abe et al. 2000; Bignell et al. 2011). Their colonies range in size from a few hundred to several million individuals. All colonies have fertile males, fertile females, sterile workers and sometimes a soldier caste. Within the colony hard labor is restricted to the workers and soldiers. Termites undergo an incomplete metamorphosis that contains an egg, young nymph, old nymph, worker, soldier, pseudergate and adult stages (Bignell et al. 2011). They are among the most successful groups of insects on Earth extending between the latitudes of 30–45N 40–45S (Antarctica is the only landmass that is not colonized by termites) (Abe et al. * Francisco Irineudo Bezerra [email protected] Márcio Mendes [email protected] Og De Souza [email protected] 1
Departamento de Geologia, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará 60440-554, Brazil
2
Departamento de Entomologia, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Minas Gerais 36570-900, Brazil
2000). Termites can also play an essential ecological role by recycling lignocellulose, a highly resistant and abundant substance, especially in subtropical and tropical regions (Wood and Sands 1978; Bignell et al. 2011). Termites otherwise known as Isoptera, are an infraorder within Blattodea (cockroaches) (Engel et al. 2009). Inward et al. (2007) suggested that all termites should be grouped within one superfamily Termitoidea. Termites and cockroaches have close evolutionary ties (Vršanský 2002; Vršanský et al. 2002, 2017, 2019; Wang et al. 2017; Courrent et al. 2018). Extant genus Cryptocercus Scudder, 1862 has many structural, behavioural and short genome similarities with termites (Bell et al. 2007; Maekawa et al. 2008). The la
Data Loading...
