Arawakis poinariOpitz, New Genus, New Species, A New Fossil Checkered Beetle in Dominican Amber (coleoptera: Cleridae: Clerinae) and Review of the Historical References of Fossil Cleridae

Abstract

Arawakis poinari, new genus, new species, is described from Dominican Amber. The visible anatomical components of the fossil clearly point to membership in the subfamily Clerinae. Although the elongated condition of the eleventh antennomere present in Arawakis suggests a relationship with the African genus Phloiocopus, the presence of this characteristic across subfamilial lines diminishes that consideration. On the basis of arrangement of elytral punctations and maxillary and tarsal-claw characteristics, the members of A. poinari are thought to be more evolutionarily aligned with a group of Chilean genera exemplified by Natalis, and less likely to the Holarctic genus Thanasimus. The absence of closely related species of A. poinari, in the Greater Antilles and Central America may be due to geographic extinctions caused by widespread cooling during the Plio-Pleistocene, or a consequence of the Cretaceous Bolide impact in Yucatán. The difficult to access historical literature that pertains to Cleridae fossils listed by Spahr are reviewed and the nomenclatural status of taxonomic names noted therein are assessed. A variety of citations are provided that discuss the importance of amber fossils to studies of insect systematics and discuss technologies involved in estimations of the age of Dominican and Baltic amber, and other resinous fossils.