Morphology and geometric morphometrics unveil a new genus of Cantharidae (Coleoptera, Elateroidea) from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, with a preliminary investigation on the phylogenetic position
Wei Zhao
A , Haoyu Liu A , Michael Geiser B and Yuxia Yang A *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A The Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application, School of Life Science, Institute of Life Science and Green Development, Hebei University, Baoding, 071002, Hebei Province, PR China.
B Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK.
Invertebrate Systematics 36(7) 608-621 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS22020
Submitted: 29 October 2021 Accepted: 3 May 2022 Published: 26 July 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing.
Abstract
Some fossil Cantharidae from the Burmese amber have been reported, but it is still a poorly investigated group and some unknown taxa remain to be discovered. In this study, we employed comparative morphology and geometric morphometrics to uncover a new catharid genus from the mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, and further investigate its phylogenetic position within Cantharidae by different cladistic methods. As a result, Brevipterus gen. nov., was defined to accommodate B. strungei (Fanti & Damggard, 2019) comb. nov. transferred from Sanaungulus and another three new species, B. acutiapicis sp. nov., B. abtusiapicis sp. nov. and B. megacephalus sp. nov., and the produced topologies indicate that the new genus is always grouped together with other members of the subfamily Cantharinae. These results will improve our knowledge about Burmite cantharids and provide some more early evidence in reconstructing the phylogeny of Cantharidae.
ZooBank LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:8CCFE45E-64C9-443F-A4B9-801655DEF1A8
Keywords: Cantharidae, fossil, geometric morphometrics, mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, morphology, new genus, new taxa, phylogeny.
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