New aposematic and presumably repellent bark cockroach from Lebanese amber

Abstract

Balatronis cretaceaŠmídová et Lei, 2017 – ancestor of the repellent harlequin cockroach (Insecta: Blattaria) is reported in this issue as the earliest representative of the type cockroach family Blattidae in the Cenomanian Myanmar amber (98 Ma). Balatronis libanensis sp.n. from the Lebanese amber (130 Ma) extends the palaeogeographic (to Gondwana) and chronostratigraphic (to Early Cretaceous) range of this advanced Mesozoic bark cockroach and shifts the expected origin of the Blattidae to the J/K boundary. In relation also to the living harlequin Neostylopyga rhombidifolia, B. libanensis is primitive in being extremely small, less coloured and with well-developed wings. It has the standard cockroach head and rudimentary, but clearly visible plesiomorphic macula-like central ocellus (as the only representative of the modern Mesoblattinidae–Blattidae–Ectobiidae–Blaberidae lineage) and represents the earliest significant record of an aposematic and thus very probably also a repellent and/or poisonous insect.