First Mesozoic water-penny beetles from Upper Cretaceous Burmese amber (Coleoptera: Psephenidae)

Chenyang Cai*, Diying Huang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Psephenidae (water-penny beetles) is a small group of byrrhoid beetles, well known for their specialized larval form. Fossil psephenids are usually known as larvae from the Cenozoic deposits. Here we describe and figure the first Mesozoic psephenid, Vetujinbrianax cretaceus gen. et sp. nov., based on a well preserved adult from the Upper Cretaceous Burmese amber. Vetujinbrianax can be placed in the extant subfamily Eubrianacinae, and it has a close affinity to the Oriental genus Jinbrianax based on the presence of plesiomorphic characters such as short prosternal process and paired tibial apical spurs. V. cretaceus represents the oldest fossil record of Eubrianacinae, as well as the first definitive adult fossil of Psephenidae.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)202-207
Number of pages6
JournalCretaceous Research
Volume91
Early online date5 Jun 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2018

Keywords

  • Aquatic beetles
  • Burmese amber
  • Byrrhoidea
  • Fossil
  • Palaeodiversity

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