Biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) from the middle Eocene Anglesea amber (Australia) originated in a subpolar greenhouse earth

ABSTRACT

Australian Anglesea amber, late middle Eocene in age, has been recently reported. It occurs in coal deposits formed in a meandering river system on an Austral subpolar coastal plain during a late Greenhouse Earth event, and contains well-preserved bioinclusions of plants, arthropods and microorganisms. Six specimens of biting midges have been recovered and two species are herein described: Meunierohelea anglesensis sp. nov. and Culicoides paleopestis sp. nov. These represent the second and third arthropod species described in Australian amber. The discovery of a new fossil species of the genus Meunierohelea is especially significant, since the only extant species is known from northern Australian tropical rainforests. Additionally, a partial specimen belongs to the Monohelea complex. Interestingly, a male and a female of C. paleopestis sp. nov. occur very close to each other, most likely trapped by the resin during mating, allowing the description of the sexual dimorphism of this species. The species of the genus Culicoides much have fed on the blood of Australian vertebrates during the Eocene, possibly transmitting diseases. These new data extend the knowledge about biting midges during the Eocene, a key time for understanding the global expansion of the Ceratopogonidae into subpolar latitudes.

KEYWORDS:

• Insecta
• new species
• sexual dimorphism
• hematophagy
• bioinclusions
• Eocene

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Dr. Rolf Schmidt, Museums Victoria’s curator, for facilitating the study of the specimens. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which helped us to improve the manuscript. This publication represents a research output from Australian Research Council Discovery Grant ARC-DP140102515 (2014–2017) to Jeffrey Stilwell, Daniel Bickel and David Cantrill and Outside Studies Programme and Robert Blackwood Seed grants from Monash University and Museums Victoria to Jeffrey Stilwell and also from Spanish AEI/FEDER, UE Grant CGL2017-84419 (the CRE project) to Enrique Peñalver and Antonio Arillo.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant ARC-DP140102515 (2014–2017), Outside Studies Programme and Robert Blackwood Seed grants from Monash University and Museums, and Spanish AEI/FEDER, UE Grant CGL2017-84419 (the CRE project)