Abstract
A new species of Ripiphoridae Gemminger & Harold, 1870, Archaeoripiphorus nuwa gen. et sp. nov., is described and illustrated from a well-preserved impression fossil from the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation collected at Daohugou Village, Shantou Township, Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia, China, representing the oldest documented occurrence of the Ripiphoridae described from the Mesozoic era. It shares several characters belonging to two basal ripiphorid subfamilies (Pelecotominae and Ptilophorinae), but it cannot be attributed to either of them and is herein placed as Subfamily incertae sedis. An overall similarity between Archaeoripiphorus gen. nov. and Recent Pelecotominae and the occurrence of wood-boring beetles in the same Formation implies a similar parasitoid host preference in xylophagous beetles for A. nuwa gen. et sp. nov., putting a spotlight on a potential host-parasitoid relationship in the Mesozoic.
Highlights
Beetles are the most diverse and successful organisms, well adapted to various habitats and comprising a major part of animal biodiversity on Earth
We describe a new genus and species of Ripiphoridae based on an individual preserved in the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation of Daohugou, which is composed of grey tuffaceous sandstone and sandy mudstone; the paleoenvironment is considered to have been a volcanic region with mountain streams and lakes (Ren & Krzeminski 2002)
Archaeoripiphorus gen. nov. can be placed within Tenebrionoidea based on its wedge-shaped body and characteristic 5-5-4 tarsal formula
Summary
Beetles are the most diverse and successful organisms, well adapted to various habitats and comprising a major part of animal biodiversity on Earth. The research on fossil Coleoptera was initiated in the early part of the 20th century (e.g., Handlirsch 1906–1908); in China, work on Mesozoic fossil Coleoptera has progressed well in the past 30 years and over 200 species have been described (Tan et al 2010) Among these fossil beetles, studies of fossil tenebrionoids are relatively few, including some species of Tenebrionidae, Mordellidae and Liaoximordellidae (Wang 1993; Huang & Yang 1999; Liu et al 2007, 2008; Wang & Zhang 2011; Chang et al 2016). McKenna et al (2015) reconstructed a comprehensive phylogeny of beetles based on DNA sequence data from eight nuclear genes and the result provided good support for a monophyletic group including Stenotrachelidae, Lymexylidae, Aderidae, Anthicidae, Meloidae, Mordellidae and Ripiphoridae, which is in a basal position within Tenebrionoidea.
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