Exceptionally well-preserved dragonflies (Insecta: Odonata) in Mexican amber

Abstract

Zheng, D., Nel, A., Jarzembowski, E.A., Chang, S.-C., Zhang, H. & Wang, B., 25 May 2018. Exceptionally well-preserved dragonflies (Insecta: Odonata) in Mexican amber. Alcheringa 43, 157–164.

Dragonflies (odonatans) are comparatively rare as amber inclusions, and most are not well preserved on account of their size. Here, we report a single piece of Mexican amber with one complete dragonfly and two damselflies. The dragonfly is attributed to the extant gomphid Erpetogomphus Selys Longchamps, and the damselflies belong to the extant coenagrionid Argia Rambur. Both genera are nowadays distributed widely in Mexico. The new discovery dates the origins of these two genera to the Miocene at least.

Daran Zheng [[email protected]], Edmund A. Jarzembowski* [[email protected]] Haichun Zhang [[email protected]] and Bo Wang† [[email protected]] State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, PR China; André Nel [[email protected]] Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB-UMR 7205-CNRS, MNHN, UPMC, EPHE, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, CP 50, Entomologie, F-75005, Paris, France; Daran Zheng, Su-Chin Chang [[email protected]] Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, PR China. *Also affiliated with Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK. †Also affiliated with Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China.

Key words:

• Gomphides
• Coenagrionidae
• Odonata
• Miocene
• Mexican amber

Acknowledgements

We offer our sincere gratitude to the editor, Dr Stephen Mcloughlin, and two reviewers, Dr Uwe Kaulfuss and Dr María Belén Lara, for their useful comments.