Archaeomegalomus, Nakamine & Yamamoto & Takahashi, 2022

Nakamine, Hiroshi, Yamamoto, Shûhei & Takahashi, Yui, 2022, Archaeomegalomus gen. nov.: A remarkable new brown lacewing from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber from northern Myanmar (Neuroptera: Hemerobiidae), Zootaxa 5178 (4), pp. 380-390 : 381-383

Genus Archaeomegalomus gen. nov.

( Figs. 1–3 , 5 )

Type species. Archaeomegalomus burmiticus sp. nov., here designated.

Diagnosis. Archaeomegalomus gen. nov. can be distinguished from the other hemerobiid genera by the combination of the following characters: Antennae, relatively long; in forewing, costal space broad, narrowed distally; humeral veinlets recurrent, pectinately branched, most subcostal veinlets once to twice forked; Sc fused with RA at distal fourth; RP stemmed single origin; MP deeply forked; CuP deeply forked. In hind wing, basal crossvein connecting RP and M (1r-m) long, slightly sigmoidal; CuP present, branched.

Species included. Archaeomegalomus burmiticus sp. nov.

Etymology. Combination of the Greek ‘ archaios ’ [ἀρχαῖος], meaning ‘ancient’, and Megalomus , a genus-group name of Hemerobiidae , in reference to the similarities in wing venation. Gender masculine.

Remarks. We assign this new genus to Hemerobiidae because of the presence of a pair of tibial spurs (absent or very short in Berothidae ), slightly swollen tibia at the middle (usually not swollen in Berothidae ), well developed recurrent and branched humeral vein in the forewing (usually undeveloped in Berothidae ), and the hind wing CuA have long pectinate branches (long with short to very short branches in Berothidae ) (see further details in Makarkin & Gröhn 2020).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Habitus and wing detail of Archaeomegalomus burmiticus gen. et sp. nov., holotype (AMNH Bu-SY31) in mid- Cretaceous Kachin amber. A, left lateral view; B, right lateral view. Scale bar: 1.0 mm.

FIGURE 2. Wing venation of Archaeomegalomus burmiticus gen. et sp. nov., holotype (AMNH Bu-SY31) in mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber. A, right forewing; B, left forewing; C, right hind wing; D, left hind wing. Abbreviations: A1–A3: first to third anal vein; CuA: cubitus anterior; CuP: cubitus posterior; hv: humeral vein; MA: media anterior; MP: media posterior; RA: radius anterior; RP: radius posterior; Sc: subcosta. Scale bar: 1.0 mm.

FIGURE 3. Details of Archaeomegalomus burmiticus gen. et sp. nov., holotype (AMNH Bu-SY31) in mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber. A, Sc and RA on right forewing; B, Sc and RA on left hind wing; C, right lateral view of head and thorax; D, dorsal view of head and thorax; E, left metatibia and tarsus; F, right lateral view of terminalia.Abbreviations: ect: ectoproct; gx9: gonocoxite 9; hp: humeral plate; hv: humeral veinlet; lp: labial palpus; mp: maxillary palpus; mtti: metatibia; RA: radius anterior; Sc: subcosta; st: gonostylus of gonocoxite 9; ts: tibial spurs. Scale bars: 0.1 mm for A and B; 0.5 mm for C–E; 0.2 mm for F.

FIGURE 5. Distribution map and forewing venation of Mesozoic Hemerobiidae. A, distribution map of Mesozoic Hemerobiidae; B, Promegalomus anomalus (modified after Panfilov 1980, fig. 91); C, Cretomerobius disjunctus (modified after Ponomarenko 1992, fig. 4); D, Cretoneuronema jarzembowskii (modified after Liu et al. 2022, fig. 3); E, Archaeomegalomus burmiticus gen. et sp. nov.; F, Hemeroberotha sinefurca (modified after Makarkin & Gröhn 2020, fig. 4); G, Plesiorobius canadensis (modified after Klimaszewski & Kevan 1986, fig. 2).