New Middle Jurassic fossils shed light on the relationship of recent Panorpoidea (Insecta, Mecoptera)

ABSTRACT

Examination of a diverse and abundant collection of Middle–Upper Jurassic scorpionflies from the Jiulongshan Formation of Daohugou village in Inner Mongolia, China, has enabled a further delimitation of the morphological variability of the polyphyletic family Orthophlebiidae. The family Protorthophlebiidae fam. nov. is herein erected on the basis of new characters present in new specimens of Protorthophlebia Tillyard, 1933 preserved with bodies. An emended diagnosis of the genus Orthophlebia is provided, adding morphological characters of the male abdomen and the head, and revising those of the wing venation. A new genus and species within the family Orthophlebiidae, Juraphlebia eugeniae gen. et sp. nov., and a new species of the genus Orthophlebia Westwood, 1845, O. chinensis sp. nov, are described. In the light of the new systematic concept and new taxonomic data relationships within the superfamily Panorpoidea and between the two modern families Panorpidae and Panorpodidae are discussed.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:4C439272-F435-4AF6-A770-13868E990D4A

KEYWORDS:

• Abdomen morphology
• Mesozoic
• Orthophlebiidae
• Panorpoidea
• Protorthophlebiidae

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank the Jorg Ansorge, Alexei Bashkuev and an anonymous reviewer for their thorough and valuable comments which help to improve the value of the manuscript, Ricardo Perez de la Fuente and Ewa Krzemińska for remarks and improving the English version of the manuscript. The research was fully supported by the Polish National Science Center (grant No. 2013/09/B/NZ8/03270), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 41688103, 31672323, 31730087), Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT-17R75) and Project of High-level Teachers in Beijing Municipal Universities (IDHT20180518). The copyright of the photographs of Protorthophlebia latipennis Tillyard, 1933 belongs to the Natural History Museum, London. The TNT program is being made available with the sponsorship of the Willi Hennig Society.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Narodowe Centrum Nauki [No. 2013/09/B/NZ8/03270];Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University [IRT-17R75];Project of High-level Teachers in Beijing Municipal Universities [IDHT20180518];National Natural Science Foundation of China [31672323,31730087,41688103].