Elattogomphus Bode, 1953

Bechly, Günter, 2018, First record and a new species of the fossil dragonfly genus Proinogomphus (Odonata: Liassogomphidae) from the Early Jurassic of Bascharage in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Zootaxa 4450 (1), pp. 108-114 : 108-109

Elattogomphus Bode, 1953 .

Heterothemis Handlirsch, 1906 (= Gomphites Handlirsch, 1920 , Liassogomphus Cowley, 1934 , Palaeogomphus Handlirsch, 1939 ) with the single type species H. brodiei (Buckman, 1843) .

Comment: The synonymy of Liassogomphus with Heterothemis Handlirsch, 1906 was established by Ansorge (2004).

Phthitogomphus Cowley, 1942 (= Paragomphus Handlirsch, 1939 ).

Proinogomphus Cowley, 1942 (= Proinogomphus Handlirsch, 1939 numen nudum).

A key was provided by Cowley (1942), and the family was first revised by Nel et al. (1993), who removed the genera Strongylogomphus Bode, 1953 and Necygomphus Cowley, 1942 (= Necrogomphus Handlirsch, 1939 ) from Liassogomphidae and transferred them to Myopophlebiidae within Heterophlebioidea. A second revision by Etter & Kuhn (2000) retained these remaining four genera, but reduced the number of species from 9 to 4 based on assumed wing venational variability similar to extant Aeshnidae . An additional genus Chrysogomphus Ren, 1994 was described from the Early Cretaceous of China, but later identified as a basal Aeshnoptera ( Huang et al. 2003). According to the cladistic analysis by Fleck et al. (2003), Liassogomphidae represents the sister group of crown group Anisoptera.

The present study describes a new species of the liassogomphid genus Proinogomphus . Its type species P. brodei was described by Handlirsch (1939), based on a figure of Bode (1907), but his introduction of the genus Proinogomphus was considered a nomen nudum by Cowley (1942) because “Handlirsch has not complied with Art. 25c 1–3 of the International Code, so that Cowley redescribed this genus. Cowley’s view was ignored by Carpenter (1992) and the revision of Nel et al. (1993) (adopted in the Paleobiology Database PaleoDB taxon number 180639), but accepted in the latest revision by Etter & Kuhn (2000). Bode (1953) described two further species P. aequalicellatus and P. bicellatus , which have been synonymized with the type species by Etter & Kuhn (2000), because they shall not differ in any major character from the type species, which appears to be at least a bit dubious concerning P. aequalicellatus because this species differs from P. brodei in the fact that the triangle and subtriangle seem to be free in as in the new species described here. Nevertheless, I herein tentatively retain this synonymy, as there are sufficient other diagnostic characters to distinguish the new species.