Taxonomic Review of Fossil Coleopterous Families (Insecta, Coleoptera). Suborder Archostemata: Superfamilies Coleopseoidea and Cupedoidea

Abstract

The paper is the first of a series, which aims to present a consistent interpretation of the suprageneric taxa of fossil beetles in the current century and their generic and species composition. Order Coleoptera is considered in composition of the superorder Coleopteroidea Handlirsch, 1903 (= Coleopterida sensu Boudreaux, 1979, nec Pearse, 1936 together with orders Skleroptera and Strepsiptera, and also with the family Umenocoleidae of unclear position. This paper includes the archostematan superfamilies Coleopseoidea and Cupedoidea of the infraorder Cupediformia, i.e., Coleopseidae (one genus and one species), Tshekardocoleidae (12 genera, 15 species), Labradorocoleidae (one genus, one species), Permocupedidae (together with Taldycupedinae, stat. nov., 24 genera and 54 species) and Cupedidae (three subfamilies, 49 genera, 253 species). The preliminary information on structure of the larva of Tshekardocoleidae from Tshekarda is done. There are also described the new taxa:Geosciences 2020, 10, 73 4 of 85 information is the web-site "FOSSILWORKS. Gateway to the paleobiology database" (fossilworks.org/) containing the information not only on many fossil taxa, but also various information on different aspects, including data on the geological circumstances of the localities where each taxon was collected, localization of specimens which gave the base for proposals of numerous fossil taxa and which were published after the description of each definite taxon included in this database, geographic and stratigraphic distribution of each taxon, summary of classification aspect of supraspecific taxa, and much other valuble information. At the moment, however, there are still many coleopterous groups remaining out of this resource and this attempt to fill some information gaps is thought to be useful for further progress of the investigation of fossil beetles. On the other hand, there are some wrong taxonomic interpretations occasionally included in the database "FOSSILWORKS". Another web-site very useful for searching general information on fossil taxa recently published is a web-series of Wikipedia "in insect paleontology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_in_insect_paleontology) and the "Index of organism names" (http://www.organismnames.com/), however, both these sources are useful mostly for getting only basic reference data on published taxa. Having summarized these parental efforts, the author of this publication hopes that it will cause a further discussion and draw the attention of other colleagues, who, in turn, will make essential contributions to reach a good reasonable taxonomic interpretation of the fossil data on the order Coleoptera.The appearance of a great interest and very rapid increase of data on fossils during recent decades created a situation when addition of new facts occurred much faster than their conceptualization in general theoretical aspects. On the other hand, every year many papers proposing new hypotheses using fossils as a part of their base have appeared. Thus, correct interpretations of...

A miniaturized ommatid beetle in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber (Coleoptera: Archostemata: Ommatidae)

“…Ommatidae is a small family in the beetle suborder Archostemata, with only three extant genera, Omma Newman and Beutelius Escalona et al in Australia, and Tetraphalerus Waterhouse in South America (Hörnschemeyer & Beutel, 2016;Lawrence & Escalona, 2019;Escalona et al, 2020). Fossil records have revealed that ommatids had a much higher diversity during the Mesozoic, as well as wider distribution (Cai & Huang, 2017;Kirejtshuk, 2020). Morphologically, Ommatidae is most similar to the family Cupedidae.…”

“…Historically, Mesozoic ommatids are only represented by compression or impression fossils, in which detailed structures are not well preserved. Recently, various exquisitely preserved ommatids have been described from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, including at least 21 species in 11 genera (generic assignment according to original authors) (Ross, , 2020Jarzembowski et al, 2020;Kirejtshuk, 2020). These amber inclusions with astonishingly fine details greatly enhanced our understanding of the diversity and disparity of Mesozoic ommatids.…”

Fossil Genera in Elateridae (Insecta, Coleoptera): A Triassic Origin and Jurassic Diversification

“…Literature. Westwood (1854: 387/393) [ 109 ], Giebel (1856: 92) [ 85 ], Scudder (1885: 797) [ 105 ], Scudder (1886: 77) [ 106 ], Scudder (1891: 518) [ 34 ], Handlirsch (1906: 553) [ 35 ], Handlirsch (1907: 748) [ 93 ], Hyslop (1921: 644) [ 36 ], Dunstan (1923: 46) [ 100 ], Cockerell (1920: 456) [ 107 ], Handlirsch (1938: 14) [ 101 ], Jell (2004: 76) [ 102 ], Coram & Jepson (2012: 60) [ 110 ], Kirejtshuk (2020: 18) [ 111 ].…”

The Evolutionary History of the Coleoptera

“…The importance of reconstructions and reviews of the fossil record for different coleopterous groups (for archostematans: see [9][10][11]-see also the references in the contribution by A.G. Kirejtshuk [12] in this issue) scarcely can be overestimated as opposed to the essentially incomplete of these versions of the fossil record. The suborder Archostemata seems to be the oldest and most basal one and knowledge of it therefore has a particular importance for modeling phylogenetic relationships.…”

“…It could also be very valuable to prepare reviews of the fossil record for other large groups (as many as possible), which will make it feasible to propose such models with a better foundation. The contribution to archostematans included in this issue [12], is the first of a series of reviews of the suprageneric taxa of fossil beetles in the current century and their generic and species composition. The necessity of such reviews exists because different researchers have different experiences in the study of fossils, and the absence of such generalizations can create situations when misunderstanding appear between specialists and lead to confusions in interpretations.…”