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Issue: Vol. 6 No. 1: February 2023
Type: Short Communication
Published: 2023-02-28
DOI: 10.11646/palaeoentomology.6.1.4
Page range: 013–016
Abstract views: 274
PDF downloaded: 8

Identity of the insect larva described by Zippel et al. (2022) in the mid–Cretaceous Burmese (Kachin) amber (Hymenoptera, Tenthredinoidea, Blasticotomidae = Xyelotomidae, syn. nov.)

A.A. Borissiak Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117647, Russia; Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
Kreuzbergstr. 90, 66482 Zweibrucken, Germany
fossil insects, sawflies, lowermost Cenomanian, new taxa

Abstract

The fossil in consideration, a small insect larva some 4 mm long, has been described, illustrated and left unnamed by Zippel et al. (2022) as a larva of the beetle family Mordellidae. The same year it was re-identified, unnamed as yet, as a sawfly larva of the family Pamphiliidae (Batelka & Engel, 2022). In our opinion, re-interpretation of the fossil by the latter authors was only partially correct. It demonstrates diagnostic characters of a sawfly larva, but the family attribution of the larva to Pamphiliidae is questionable: in our opinion it is most similar to larval Blasticotomidae (Tenthredinoidea).

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