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A remarkable new thorny lacewing from mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar (Neuroptera: Rhachiberothidae)

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Abstract

Thorny lacewings (Rhachiberothidae) are a small group of Neuroptera, and currently distributed only within sub-Saharan Africa. They are relatively abundant in the fossil record of various Cretaceous ambers across the Northern Hemisphere, but all the Cretaceous rhachiberothids belong to the extinct subfamily Paraberothinae. Here, a new thorny lacewing, Paradoxoberotha chimaera gen. et sp. nov., is described from the mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber of northern Myanmar. This new genus is characterized by absence of spine or spine-like setae on ventral edge of protibia, well-developed recurrent humeral vein in the forewing, and well-developed hypocauda and pseudohypocauda in female genital segments. The peculiar combination of the morphological characters found in Paradoxoberotha gen. nov. cannot allow the definitive subfamilial placement within the currently recognized two subfamilies of Rhachiberothidae. This new species enhances knowledge on the morphological and species diversity of the Rhachiberothidae in the Cretaceous.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments on this manuscript. Also, the editorial work of Dr. Mike Reich (Editor-in-Chief) and Dr. Joachim T. Haug (Assoc. Editor) are gratefully acknowledged. This study was partly supported by Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows (JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 20J00159) to SY from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Tokyo, Japan; and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31972871) to XL.

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  1. Handling Editor: Joachim T. Haug.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Minoh Park Insect Museum, Minoh Park 1-18, Minoh, Osaka, 562-0002, Japan

    Hiroshi Nakamine

  2. Hokkaido University Museum, Hokkaido University, Kita 10-jo, Nishi 8-chome, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan

    Shûhei Yamamoto

  3. Keio Yochisha Elementary School, Ebisu 2-35-1, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-0013, Japan

    Yui Takahashi

  4. Department of Entomology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Hongyu Li & Xingyue Liu

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  1. Hiroshi Nakamine
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  2. Shûhei Yamamoto
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Correspondence to Hiroshi Nakamine or Xingyue Liu.

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Nakamine, H., Yamamoto, S., Takahashi, Y. et al. A remarkable new thorny lacewing from mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar (Neuroptera: Rhachiberothidae). PalZ 96, 207–217 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12542-021-00589-0

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