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Issue: Vol. 4272 No. 2: 29 May 2017
Type: Article
Published: 2017-05-29
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4272.2.7
Page range: 263–275
Abstract views: 86
PDF downloaded: 1

First record of hawker dragonflies from Eocene Baltic amber (Odonata: Anisoptera: Gomphaeschnidae)

Faculty of Biology, Department of Ecology – Animal Ecology, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Karl-von-Frisch-Strasse 8, 35043 Marburg, Germany.
Am Stadtgarten 4, 71032 Böblingen, Germany.
Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB - UMR 7205 – CNRS, MNHN, UPMC, EPHE, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, CP 50, Entomologie, F-75005, Paris, France.
Odonata Gomphaeschnidae Gomphaeschnaoidinae Eocene Baltic amber gen. et sp. nov.

Abstract

Based on three specimens, the first record of hawker dragonflies from Baltic amber is described in a new genus with two new species: Elektrogomphaeschna peterthieli gen. et sp. nov. and E. annekeae sp. nov.. They belong to the family Gomphaeschnidae and are tentatively attributed to the extinct subfamily Gomphaeschnaoidinae. The latter was previously only known from Cretaceous fossils and is here shown to have survived the K-Pg mass extinction event. This discovery also confirms the still higher diversity of Gomphaeschnidae during the Paleogene compared to the Neogene that was dominated by the more derived Aeshnidae sensu stricto.

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