A new Acrulia species from Danish amber (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Omaliinae: Omaliini)

ABSTRACT

Acrulia danica Shavrin sp. n. from late Eocene Danish amber is described and illustrated based on a female holotype. The new species, embedded within a small piece of amber, was scanned using X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT), to enable the detailed study of its morphology including the taxonomically important structure of the accessory sclerite. Previously, only three extant species of the genus Acrulia Thomson, 1858 were known from the Palaearctic Region. The new species is compared with extant congeners and the importance of a detailed study of the fossil entomofauna of the Danish amber is discussed in view of the hypotheses about its different origin from other European ambers.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:67972F3A-DF6A-48D5-A4BD-96EF8AA87DCF

KEYWORDS:

• Acrulia
• Omaliini
• fossil
• palaeontology
• Baltic amber
• X-ray micro-CT

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank A.Vanaga (Daugavpils) for assistance with X-ray micro-computed tomography. This work was supported by the Villum Experiment grant “Baltic Amber Enigma” to A. Solodovnikov (including postdoctoral fellowship of J. Jenkins Shaw). Thanks to Evgeny E. Perkovsky for discussion about the Danish amber. We are grateful to José L. Reyes-Hernández (Copenhagen) and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments for our manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

Acrulia danica sp. nov., female, Baltic amber, ZMUC-900082, X-ray microtomography volume rendering of the habitus. Available through the Zenodo depository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10389908)

Acrulia danica sp. nov., female, Baltic amber, ZMUC-900082, X-ray microtomography volume rendering the antenna. Available through the Zenodo depository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10389933)

Acrulia danica sp. nov., female, Baltic amber, ZMUC-900082, X-ray microtomography volume rendering the female genital segment. Available through the Zenodo depository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10389953)