The first representative of the fly genus Trentepohlia subgenus Mongoma in amber from the Miocene of Sumatra (Diptera: Limoniidae)

ABSTRACT

The limoniid fly Trentepohlia (Mongoma) pouilloni n. sp. Ngô-Muller, Garrouste & Nel, is the first fossil insect to be described from Sumatra. On the basis of its wing morphology and venation, it is very similar to the extant Sumatran species Trentepohlia (Mongoma) pennipes (Osten Sacken, 1888), supporting a Miocene rather than older age for the amber. By comparison with the few available data on the biology of the extant species of the subgenus Mongoma, it probably lived in a warm and humid forest where it was trapped in dipterocarpacean resin. The wide Cenozoic distribution of the subgenus Mongoma in Europe and South-East Asia is in accordance with its extant circumtropical distribution.

KEYWORDS:

• Insecta
• Diptera
• Tipuloidea
• n. sp
• Sumatra amber

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank Jorge Mederos-López and an anonymous referee for their helpful remarks on the first version of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.