Abstract
Two new genera and species of Elateridae, Megalithomerus magohalmii gen. et sp. nov. and Koreagrypnus jinju gen. et sp. nov., are described based on two pairs of fossils from the late Early Cretaceous Jinju Formation in Jinju City, South Korea. Both Megalithomerus and Koreagrypnus represent the youngest occurrences of an extinct elaterid subfamily, Protagrypninae. Megalithomerus magohalmii is the largest known fossil elaterid. These newly described elaterids provide a better understanding of the morphological diversity and occurrence of Protagrypninae through geologic time.
Highlights
Elateridae, commonly known as click beetles, are the most speciose family in the superfamily Elaterioidea, which includes nearly 10,000 species worldwide [1]
We describe two fossil species of click beetles from the Jinju Formation
This genus is similar to Paralithomerus Chang, Zhang et Ren, 2008 from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation in the lack of a medial plate on the prosternum, but differs from the latter in having the smaller anterior opening of the pronotosternal sutures and the metacoxal plate reaching the lateral margin of the basal abdominal ventrite, and lacking the distinct striae on the elytron
Summary
Elateridae, commonly known as click beetles, are the most speciose family in the superfamily Elaterioidea, which includes nearly 10,000 species worldwide [1]. Costa et al [1] divided Elateridae into 19 subfamilies, based on a synthesis of previous phylogenetic hypotheses [7, 8] These include several small groups, such as Cebrioninae, Diminae and Thylacosterninae, whose phylogenetic status remains unstable. The fossil record of Elateridae comprises 271 named species and another 40 species that had not been fully named (updated from Kirejthuk & Ponomarenko [13]) All of these elaterid species were assigned to at least 12 subfamilies and 112 genera including 44 extant genera. We describe two fossil species of click beetles from the Jinju Formation These represent the first fossil records of Elateridae from Korea. One of the species described in this study is the largest fossil of Elateridae, there exist even larger species in the extant fauna
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