Andre Nel

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle · Department of Systematics and Evolution

New finds of damsel-and dragonflies from the Miocene Wiesbaden Formation of the Mainz Basin are figured and described. The wing fragment of the family Libellulidae and an almost complete specimen of Lestes sp. (Lestidae) widen our knowledge of the biota of the Wies-baden Formation, in particular as historical finds must be considered lost or their...

Since the first description from China, the Mesozoic dictyopteran family Umenocoleidae was recorded from the Eurasian and South American continents with 18 genera and 31 species. Here, we describe one new genus and three species from the Jinju Formation, South Korea: Umenocoleus minimus sp. nov., Psedoblattapterix weoni gen. et sp. nov., and Petrop...

Hymenoptera is a large insect order and one of the most diverse animal groups. Their Recent representatives and biology are widely studied, however there are many fossil specimens pending to be studied that may help to understand their evolution. Some hymenopteran families, such as Mymaridae and Mymarommatidae, are fascinating due to their extremel...

The new tenthredinid Palaeocaiina menatensis gen. et sp. nov. is described and illustrated from the Paleocene of Menat (Puy-de-Dôme, France). Although its preservation complicates the observation of several key characters useful to distinguish between tenthredinid subfamilies, we decided to place this new taxon within the tribe Allantini of the sub...

Mesosticta additicta sp. nov., fourth species of this platystictid genus, is described from the mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber, suggesting its endemic diversification in the West Burma Block (WBB), possibly in relation to the geographic isolation of this area during the formation of mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber.

Two evanioid wasps are described from specimens entrapped in Kachin amber. The first species, Sinuevania pouilloni sp. nov., allows a revision of the diagnosis of the genus Sinuevania. The complex forewing venation (plesiomorphy) of this new species confirms that the genus Sinuevania belongs to the stem group of the family Evaniidae. Together with...

We present a new genus and species of Caloneurodea from the Gzhelian (Stephanian B) of El Bierzo coalfield, in NW Iberian Peninsula (León, Spain) belonging to an uncertain family. Wappleria tremoris gen. et sp. nov. is described on the basis of a new specimen found in the Stephanian B strata of Casilda Mine, of Gzhelian age (Late Pennsylvanian, Lat...

The second fossil assassin bug of the cryptic subfamily Phimophorinae is described and figured from the mid-Miocene amber of the Dominican Republic, on the basis of traditional optical observations and a computed micro-tomography 3D reconstruction. The fossil can be attributed to the extant, monotypic genus Phimophorus Bergroth, which is currently...

Insect fossils can be difficult to study as taphonomical processes have resulted in poor preservation and contrast of composition We propose an easy methodology based on UV-A light to study compression insect fossils and select specimens of interest for more advanced imagery studies. Ultraviolet (UV)light imaging has been previously performed on ar...

Several Coleoptera fossils, including Coptoclavidae, Elateridae, Ommatidae, and Staphylinidae, were previously described from the Jinju Formation (Albian), South Korea. However, numerous beetle fossils require further research to fully understand the biodiversity of this important Cretaceous deposit. In this study, we present an overview of the div...

The order Psocodea, including barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice, is diverse and widely distributed since the Cretaceous. That is particularly the case for the speciose extinct family Empheriidae (Psocodea, Trogiomorpha, Atropetae), recently fused with the ‘Archaeatropidae’. Understanding the evolution of barklice is dependent in part on studyi...

A new species of Tettigarctidae Sanmai? zetavena sp. nov. is described and illustrated from the Late Triassic Amisan Formation (Republic of Korea). This new species is the oldest representative of the genus Sanmai Chen et al., 2016, previously only known from the Middle Jurassic of China. This discovery expands the temporal range of the genus Sanma...

Stylocentrus pouilloni n. sp., the second species from the mid-Miocene Dominican amber, is described. This new occurrence is important as it enriches the incomplete fossil record of Membracidae, a morphologically highly diversified family among Cicadomorpha, and corroborates the hypothesis of an early divergence of Stegaspidinae within Membracidae.

Clubtail dragonfly Lindenia heeri sp. nov., is described and figured as the first fossil representative of the extant lindeniine genus Lindenia, based on a finely preserved forewing from the mid-Miocene lacustrine maar of Öhningen, Germany. The new species differs from the type and only species of Lindenia tetraphylla in the dark brown pterostigma...

Notre connaissance du vivant est encore très limitée, moins de 20% des espèces présentes sur terre sont à ce jour connues. Il est donc indispensable d’accroître notre travail d’inventaire de la biodiversité. C’est le but de la recherche scientifique, mais c’est aussi une responsabilité vitale à l’heure de la sixième extinction. Alors qu’un contre-l...

To be successfully established on oceanic islands, native ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) have to migrate from the mainland or from nearby islands, crossing the ocean barriers, to find a suitable habitat. Despite the general interest on oceanic islands biotas, nothing is known about the deep-time migration and settling of native ants in these insula...

Luberotenthredo cerestensis gen. et sp. nov. is the first record of the sawfly family Tenthredinidae from the Oligocene of Céreste (Southern France). This taxon is described and illustrated based on a well-preserved specimen. This genus resembles the extant genus Perineura (subfamily Tenthredininae, tribe Perineurini) with which it shares forewing...

The superorder Archaeorthoptera (or total group of the extant Orthoptera) was exceedingly diverse during the Late Carboniferous and Permian. Most of the species described to date are comparatively remote relatives of Orthoptera (Archaeorthoptera nec. Panorthoptera). The Panorthoptera are a clade including species more closely related to crown Ortho...

A new species of palaeodictyopteridan insect, Heolus martinclosasi sp. nov., based on a partial wing, has been identified in the uppermost Pennsylvanian (Stephanian C local stage) deposits of the Castellar de N’Hug-Camprodon Basin, located in the Surroca-Ogassa coalfield within the Pyrenees of Catalonia, Spain. This species belongs to the Palaeodic...

A new species of Rhagionidae, Symphoromyia odileae, is described from the Middle Eocene Baltic amber. Chrysopilus meunieri Kerr, 2010, also from the Baltic amber, is redescribed on the basis of a new specimen, and its attribution to the genus Chrysopilus is confirmed. This specimen of Chrysopilus can be considered as the first accurate fossil repre...

The Ensifera are famous for the diversity of their acoustic devices and have been intensively studied for their acoustic behaviour and evolution. They sing mostly by scrapping their forewings against each other. Their apparatus includes a stridulatory file and several broad areas that may play as sound resonators, which homology has been harshly de...

The Paleocene Paskapoo Formation in Alberta, Canada, offers a unique opportunity to gain insight into insect diversity at that time. This fossil insect-rich formation has yielded a variety of fossil arthropod specimens, including several wings of Odonata related to the genus Alloaeschna Wighton and Wilson, 1986. Here, we demonstrate that morphologi...

The order Mecoptera, commonly known as scorpionflies, has a long and fascinating evolutionary history that spans over 270 million years, if we consider its stem group. Despite their well-documented fossil record during the Mesozoic, many aspects of their diversity and evolution remain poorly understood. In this study, we increase the fossil record...

We introduce a novel paoliid, Carbonidelia gallica gen. et sp. nov., which may share close affinities with the ‘ideliid’ genus Sojanidelia Storozhenko, 1992. This new taxon is described from Gzhelian strata exposed at Tante Victoire in Var, France. Additionally, we present a remarkably well-preserved forewing from the same outcrop belonging to the...

New grylloblattidan insect specimens from the early Permian (Asselian to early Sakmarian) Meisenheim Formation of the Saar-Nahe Basin in southwest Germany are described. The most abundant specimens are assigned to Pictoborella germanica (Prokop et al. in Geodiversitas 34: 271–281, 2012) and to Oborella brauckmanni Prokop et al., 2012. Morphological...

An unprecedented programme of comparative study of dragonfly flight (Insecta, Odonatoptera : dragonflies, damselflies an griffenflies) has been set up to better understand and define the role of flight in the evolution of the Odonatoptera, which have been in the air for more than 330 million years, and to assess the possibilities of palaeo-bioinspi...

A new species of the extinct genus Eocenostenus Cai, Clarke, Huang & Nel, 2014, is described from the middle Paleocene (Selandian) of Menat (France). Eocenostenus vanja sp. nov. is the second known species of the genus, the first being Eocenostenus fossilis Cai et al., 2014 described from the late Eocene (Priabonian) of Monteils, France. The discov...

Myanmarvelia pankowskiorum gen. et sp. nov., is the first occurrence of the aquatic bug family Mesoveliidae in the mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber. This new taxon is described and illustrated based on a well-preserved female specimen. Although numerous morphological characters confirm its placement in the Mesoveliidae its position within the family is...

Oligoptilomera luberonensis gen. et sp. nov., first fossil representative of the gerrid subfamily Ptilomerinae, is described and figured from the Oligocene of Murs (Vaucluse, Southern France). Extant Ptilomerinae live in streams in warm climates, of the Indo-Malaysian, eastern Palaearctic, and Papouan regions. The discovery of this Oligocene French...

Psocids, commonly known as barklice, are insects belonging to the order Psocodea, together with the parasitic lice. They usually inhabit forest litter or the bark of tree trunks and branches, showing grazing herbivorous or detritivorous feeding habits. The Cretaceous psocid record is diverse, containing more than 70 described species. Here, we pres...

The family Campterophlebiidae Handlirsch, 1920 is the dominant Jurassic clade of Odonata Fabricius, 1793, especially hosting a high diversification in northern China. The Chinese campterophlebiid damsel-dragonflies were mainly recovered from the Middle Jurassic of Inner Mongolia, northern China. In the present study, a new campterophlebiid, Parasin...

The members of the family Lepidopsocidae (Psocodea: Trogiomorpha) are commonly known as scaly-winged barklice based on the presence of scales on body and wings. Interestingly, the members of the subfamily Thylacellinae, which is the sister group to the remaining members of the family, lack scales and are characterised by densely setose body and win...

Here we describe Pachytesta duquesnei sp. nov., a Carboniferous medullosalean ‘seed’ (middle Pennsylvanian, Bruay Formation, slag heap of Lens-Li´evin district, Pas-de-Calais department, France), attributed to a female reproductive structure of ‘seed ferns’ of the genus Alethopteris, very frequent in the same layers. The peculiar micropylar exte...

This PDF contains the extensive Supplementary Data of the paper "Amber and the Cretaceous Resinous Event" at the end of it

Oligomonoctenus neytiriae gen. et sp. nov., the second fossil representative of the family Diprionidae from the uppermost Oligocene of Aix-en-Provence, France, is described on the basis of a well-preserved compression fossil. It is compared to the other extant and fossil diprionid genera. Its morphology and wing venation support placement in the su...

THE PAPER IS IN OPEN ACCESS IN THE URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104486 Amber is fossilized resin that preserves biological remains in exceptional detail, study of which has revolutionized understanding of past terrestrial organisms and habitats from the Early Cretaceous to the present day. Cretaceous amber outcrops are more abund...

Chez les insectes, la cuticule et des organes, comme les ailes, ont des fonctions multiples et certaines encore non élucidées. L’utilisation des lumières non conventionnelles (non visibles, comme les IR -infrarouge- ou les UV- ultraviolet -), et l’analyse photonique associée permettent d’établir des hypothèses sur les adaptations morpho-anatomiques...

The lacustrine Lagerstätte of Menat (Puy-de-Dôme, France) provides a unique window into the terrestrial Paleocene environments of Western Europe (Wedmann et al., 2018). It has shown an exceptional diversity of plants (leaves, flowers, seeds, pollen), and animals (vertebrates and arthropods, especially insects) (e.g., Piton, 1940). Wappler et al. (2...

The lacustrine Konservat-Lagerstätte of Menat (Puy-de-Dôme, France) is a unique window in the terrestrial Paleocene environments of Western Europe (Wedmann et al., 2018). It has yielded an exceptional diversity of plants (leaves, flowers, seeds, pollen), and animals (vertebrates and arthropods, especially insects) (e.g., Piton, 1940). Nevertheless,...

While not generally used for relatively flat structures, X‐ray microtomography can provide decisive insights for comparative anatomy and evolutionary studies of flat structures, thereby solving long‐standing ecological and evolutionary issues. This is particularly true for the study of insect wings, organs that have played a central role in the evo...

We describe an archaeorthopteran forewing from the Early Permian (Asselian or early Sakmarian) Humberg lake system (uppermost Meisenheim Formation) of Grügelborn/Saarland. It is attributed to a new genus and species, Saarelcana stapsi gen. et sp. nov., and it represents the oldest record of the Elcanoidea (= ‘Permelcanidae’ + Elcanidae). This is th...

Bilebullephlebia legendrei n. gen., n. sp. is described, illustrated, and placed into the small epiproctophoran family Burmaphlebiidae. This family was previously known from the mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber by two monotypic genera, but the new fossil shows that its diversity is underestimated. At least one additional genus with an enigmatic wing ven...

The infra-order Isoptera, or termites, is a diverse group of eusocial insects with a worldwide distribution. Despite their importance in many ecosystems, little is known about their origin and early evolution. Recent discoveries of new fossils of Isoptera from Burmese amber (Albian- Cenomanian) and in the Crato Formation (Aptian) have shed added li...

Fossils are more and more used in phylogenetic evolutionary studies either for clade calibration, or as terminals in a dataset including morphological characters. The strength of these meth-odological advances relies however on the quality and completeness of the fossil record. For crickets (Insecta, Orthoptera, Gryllidea), few ancient (pre-Cenozoi...

Here we present a state of the art of the Upper Carboniferous insects from the Iberian Peninsula, including new fossils of Panorthoptera (Archaeorthoptera), and of the orders Paoliida, Megasecoptera, and Palaeodictyoptera. These fossils are from Gzhelian deposits of different coalfields in León Province (Castilla y León, NW Spain). Among the insect...

Effective flight capacity is a crucial survival attribute of volant animals. Several vertebrate clades have acquired gliding capabilities and at least three of them independently acquired powered flight. Contrastingly, wings were probably acquired only once by pterygotan insects. Despite this, insects have developed a great variety of structural ap...

OPEN ACCESS: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/spp2.1478 The colonization of freshwater by insects is one of the milestones in the establishment of continental ecosystems and, thus, of life on our planet. However, several key aspects of this process such as patterns of origination, early adaptations and palaeoecological relationship...

The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is one of the most important Cenozoic climatic events shaping modern biodiversity, yet reconstructions of its palaeobiomes remain controversial. Here we describe Gesomyrmex gallicus sp. nov., a new, extinct species of the ant genus Gesomyrmex Mayr, 1868, based on minor and major workers preserved in the...

A new genus and species of the archaeorthopteran order Caloneurodea are described and illustrated from the Salagou Formation (France) as Lodevogramma pumilia gen. et sp. nov. The particular wing venation of this species precludes its placement within one of the already described families of Caloneurodea. Consequently, the family Lodevogrammatidae f...

While Mesozoic, Paleogene, and Neogene insect faunas greatly resemble the modern one, the Paleozoic fauna provides unique insights into key innovations in insect evolution, such as the origin of wings and modifications of postembryonic development including holometaboly. Deep-divergence estimates suggest that the majority of contemporary insect ord...

Insect colonization of continental aquatic ecosystems and their immediate surroundings was paramount for the establishment of complex trophic nets and organic‐matter recycling in those environments. True flies and other insects such as mayflies developed crucial ecological roles in early continental aquatic ecosystems, as early as the Triassic. How...

Lodevoisadia coheni gen. et sp. nov. is described as the ninth species of ‘Grylloblattodea’ from the middle Permian of the Salagou Formation, near Lodève town (France). It is currently not reasonable to place this species into a specific family, even though it seems to share most characters with the small family Tunguskapteridae. The lack of phylog...

Glaphyrophlebia victoiriensis sp. nov. (Paoliida: Blattinopsidae) is the third Gzhelian representative of the genus and is described based on a beautiful forewing from the Var department in Southern France. Together with the description of another forewing fragment of a Glaphyrophlebia sp. from the Province of León in NW Spain, they improve our kno...

Aeshna caseneuvensis sp. nov., the second oldest representative of the genus Aeshna, is described and figured from the lowermost Oligocene of Luberon in southeastern France. The oldest described species in this genus is from the uppermost Eocene of Colorado in USA. Their occurrence in very distant areas in an interval of time of less of five millio...

Shurabia taewani sp. nov., is the first representative of the reculid family Geinitziidae described from the Upper Triassic of South Korea. The preservation of numerous wing venation characters on this new fossil allows for its placement in the genus Shurabia and a deep comparison with other genera of Geinitziidae. This discovery suggests that the...

The Permo–Triassic interval encompasses three extinction events including the most dramatic biological crisis of the Phanerozoic, the latest Permian mass extinction. However, their drivers and outcomes are poorly quantified and understood for terrestrial invertebrates, which we assess here for insects. We find a pattern with three extinctions: the...

GDR BIOMIM 2088 - Journée IdF - 23 Novembre 2022. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. Auditorium GGE

A new aeschnidiid dragonfly, Gansuaeschnidia hongi gen. et sp. nov., is established based on three hind wings from the Lower Cretaceous Chijinpu Formation of the Jiuquan Basin, northwestern China. The new taxon is characterised by the strongly closed Ax1 and Ax2, only one row of cells in the lower and middle parts of the discoidal triangle, and sub...

Glaphyrophlebia victoriensis sp. nov. (Paoliida: Blattinopsidae) is the third Gzhelian representative of the genus and is described based on a beautiful forewing from the Var department in Southern France. Together with the description of another forewing fragment of a Glaphyrophlebia sp. from the Province of León in NW Spain, they improve our know...

Koreatriassothemis elongatus gen. et sp. nov. is the first representative of the odonatan superfamily Triassolestoidea described from the Upper Triassic of the Republic of Korea. Despite close similarities with the genera Pseudotriassothemis and Triassoneura, exact affinities within Triassolestoidea remain uncertain, thus discoveries of more comple...

Continental ecosystems of the middle Permian Period (273–259 million years ago) are poorly understood. In South Africa, the vertebrate fossil record is well documented for this time interval, but the plants and insects are virtually unknown, and are rare globally. This scarcity of data has hampered studies of the evolution and diversification of li...

Tennentsia koreana n. sp. is the first representative of the family Dysmorphoptilidae described from the Upper Triassic of South Korea. This discovery extends the distribution of the genus Tennentsia in Asia and suggests that it was broadly distributed during the Triassic. Tennentsia koreana n. sp. differs from the other species currently included...

The past diversity of Isoptera is relatively poorly documented. Many early-diverging families are only represented today by relicts of their Mesozoic and Cenozoic richness. Therefore, the onset of their evolutionary history and the transitions between families, or even between subsocial and eusocial ways of life, remain difficult to decipher and re...

A new species, Eltxo grimaldii sp. nov., is described from Spanish Lower Cretaceous (middle Albian) amber from El Soplao, based on a single female. The new species is compared with the other only known species of the genus, Eltxo cretaceus Arillo & Nel, 2000, based on a single male specimen also found in Spanish amber, but slightly younger (Peñacer...

In the current era of data explosion, the use of genetic information is increasingly being applied across numerous biological questions. One application has been to develop more robust evolutionary frameworks. Such well-resolved phylogenetic relationships are currently lacking from many of the basal branches of diversity-rich taxa. This is most pro...

Sysciophlebia ‘sp. form Villablino’, the first Iberian representative of the Palaeozoic–Early Mesozoic family Spiloblattinidae, is described and illustrated. Its forewing colour pattern is strongly similar to those of the Gzhelian–early-middle Asselian species Sysciophlebia euglyptica, Sysciophlebia ilfeldensis, Sysciophlebia rubida, and ‘Sysciophl...

Wing coloration is a very ancient feature among insects. Even the wings of the oldest known Pterygota showed transverse colored bands involved in a putative disruptive function. However, no evidence of wing coloration in the representatives of the superorder Odonatoptera is recorded before the latest Triassic. These were the only insect flying- pre...

Chrysopidae (green lacewings) is one of the species-rich families of Neuroptera. The Cretaceous fossils of green lacewing currently comprise 11 genera and 26 species. Here we describe a new green lacewing species, Mesypochrysa coadnata sp. nov., from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber. The new species belongs to the extinct subfamily Limaiinae and is cha...