Sphaeropsocus Hagen, 1882

Grimaldi, David & Engel, Michael S., 2006, Extralimital Fossils of the ‘‘ Gondwanan’ ’ Family Sphaeropsocidae (Insecta: Psocodea), American Museum Novitates 3523 (1), pp. 1-20 : 5

Genus Sphaeropsocus Hagen

Sphaeropsocus Hagen, 1882: 226 . Type species: Sphaeropsocus kuenowii Hagen, 1882 , by monotypy.

Palaeotroctes Enderlein, 1911: 350 . Type species: Atropos succinica Hagen, 1882 , by monotypy. Synonymy vide Pearman, 1958: 51.

DIAGNOSIS: (modified from Badonnel, 1963;

Smithers, 1972; Mockford, 1993). Distinguished from Badonnelia on the basis of less reduced venation of the female forewings (vide Badonnelia , infra); distinguished from Sphaeropsocopsis by not having the apices of Rs, M, or Cu fused; from Sphaeropsocites by having P 4 not swollen, eyes distant from posterior margin of head, M and Rs not fused, and no crossveins; from Sphaeropsocoides by having very short to virtually no stems for R, M, and Cu, and tibiae without apical spurs.

Sphaeropsocus kuenowii Hagen

Figures 1 , 2a–d, 3 , 4

Figures

Fig. 1. Sphaeropsocus kuenowii Hagen (slightly reconstructed), as originally illustrated by Hagen, 1882 (a), by Enderlein, 1911 (b), by Badonnel, 1951 (c), and by Bekker-Migdisova and Vishniakova, 1962 (d). All authors erroneously depicted this species with a fully developed, Y-shaped frontal ‘‘suture’’ (which is actually an ecdysial cleavage furrow or scar; since true sutures represent segmental lines). In fact, note how later authors had simply redrawn Enderlein’s illustration. Interestingly, Hagen (1882) was far more accurate than his successors in the description and depiction of this species, the latter of whom erroneously depicted a forked cubital, a long stem of vein M, and the anterior margin of the forewing as barely cordate. Despite improvements in optics, the iconography of this interesting species suffered from a steady decline in original and critical observations.

Fig. 3. Dorsal habitus of Sphaeropsoscus kuenowii Hagen (KU B-144), in mid-Eocene Baltic amber, slightly reconstructed.

Fig. 4. Ventral habitus of Sphaeropsocus kuenowii Hagen (KU B-148), with detail of compound eye and terminal sternites.