Abstract
Metteniusaceae is a small family with ca. 11 genera that are distributed in the Neotropical and Paleotropical regions. The genus Calatola represents the northern limit of the family in the Neotropics. In this work, we describe a new fossil species of Calatola (Metteniusaceae) from the Miocene Chiapas amber, Southern Mexico, based on several staminate flowers. Calatola verae Estrada-Ruiz, Hernández-Urban, Rodríguez-Reyes, Ortega-Flores et Hernández-Damián sp. nov. is characterized by several actinomorphic unisexual flowers belonging to an inflorescence. It has four petals with adaxially raised midveins, pubescence on both sides of petals, an androecium composed of four stamens, each one of the stamens alternate and adnate to the petals at their base, and with anthers dithecal and oblong. This new fossil species of Calatola represents the first macrofossil record of the genus discovered in Mexico and based on its fossil flowers or inflorescence, provides evidence for a more extensive distribution of the genus in low latitudes in North America during the Miocene.
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