The first Odonata from the early Eocene Allenby Formation of the Okanagan Highlands, British Columbia, Canada (Anisoptera, Aeshnidae and cf. Cephalozygoptera, Dysagrionidae)

Abstract

Abstract Fossil insects have been collected and described from the early Eocene Allenby Formation of southern British Columbia, Canada for over a century, but these have never included Odonata. We describe the first members of that order from the formation: Allenbya holmesae, new genus and species, most likely belonging to the Dysagrionidae (suborder Cephalozygoptera), and a torn, folded, and incomplete wing assigned to the Aeshnidae (suborder Anisoptera) that cannot be identified below family level. In other regional deposits of the early Eocene Okanagan Highlands series of lacustrine shales, the Dysagrionidae is by far the most common odonate family, followed by the Aeshnidae.