LIBELLULIDAE, Leach, 1815

Kohli, Manpreet Kaur, Ware, Jessica L. & Bechly, Günter, 2015, How to date a dragonfly: Fossil calibrations for odonates, Palaeontologia Electronica 19, pp. 1-14 : 9

CROWN LIBELLULIDAE

Node Calibrated: (10) Crown Libellulidae . This node represents crown Libellulidae .

Species. Tauriphila ? cerestensis Nel and Paicheler, 1993

Specimen. MNHM PE 2014/4 (old no. Od6 coll. Herbert Lutz) at Naturhistorisches Museum in Mainz ( Germany): a nearly complete dragonfly.

Phylogenetic Justification. Even though this extant genus has never been included in a phylogenetic analysis based on molecular data, morphological studies suggest that Tauriphila is a libellulid. It shares the unique wing venational apomorphies of the family Libellulidae (e.g., shape of anal loop) and can be attributed to the modern subfamily Pantalinae (= Trameinae) based on the presence of two rows of cells between Rspl and IR2, and the strongly broadened hind wing anal field with numerous small cells basal of anal loop, correlated with a typical triangular shape of hind wings ( Davies and Tobin, 1985). The Nel and Paicheler (1993) Tauriphila ? fossil meets the synapomorphies for Trameinae (with the exception of flight behavior) and for Tauriphila (last antenodal incomplete, forewing triangle crossed, Mspl distinct, median planate cells forming a single row; Garrison et al., 2006).

Minimum Age. 29.2 Ma.

Age Justification. Found in Céreste, Vaucluse, France. These deposits are upper Rupelian (33.9– 28.1 Ma; Cohen et al., 2013), and can be assigned to the "Stampien supérieur", mammal Paleogene zone MP 24 ( Ducreux et al., 1985) which spans 30.2–29.2 Ma ( İslamoğlu et al., 2010).

Discussion. Sympetrum bigoti Nel and Papazian, 1985 was described from the latest Oligocene of Aix-en-Provence in France, which confirms the presence of the crown group of Libellulidae in the upper Oligocene. The libellulid Palaeolibellula zherikhini was described from the Upper Cretaceous (Turonian, 93.9–89.8 Ma) of Kazakhstan by Fleck et al. (1999) but we did not use it to calibrate the crown group node Libellulidae because the phylogenetic position of this fossil species within the family Libellulidae is not resolved and it might instead represent a stem libellulid.