A new fossil representative of the scorpionfly subfamily Panorpinae (Mecoptera, Panorpidae) from the Miocene of France

Abstract

The extant representatives of the order Mecoptera (except Siphonaptera now considered to belong to the Mecoptera: Tihelka et al., 2020) are famous among insects because of their long beaklike rostrum but also, because the males of the family Panorpidae have enlarged genitals raised over the body, and are called scorpionflies. The order Mecoptera is thought to have arisen during the Carboniferous period (Misof et al., 2014), a dating corroborated by their abundant fossil record during the Permian period (https://paleobiodb.org), and the presence of the antliophoran sister group Amphiesmenoptera during the late Carboniferous (Nel et al., 2007). The origin of the main family of Mecoptera i.e., the Panorpidae, was estimated to date to the Early Cretaceous (ca. 122.5 Ma) (Miao et al., 2019). The phylogenetic relationships within the family Panorpidae were recently investigated and revised using morphological data (Wang & Hua, 2021) and new hypotheses were proposed for their past dispersal events. Wang & Hua (2021: fig. 17) assumed that the Panorpidae originated from Asia and that at least two dispersal events have shaped the west European fauna. Here we describe a new specimen of scorpionfly from the Miocene of Murat (Cantal, France).