The Early Cretaceous evidence of rapid evolution of the genus Helius Lepeletier and Serville, 1828 (Limoniidae, Diptera)

Fossil Calibrations for the Arthropod Tree of Life

“…aftimacrai was discovered in amber from the Mdeyrij-Hammana outcrop of the Baabda district, Mount Lebanon (Azar et al, 2010). Krzemiński et al (2014) indicate a Barremian age for the amber-bearing outcrop. As the younger boundary of the Barremian is 126.3 Ma ± 0.4 Myr (Ogg et al, 2012a), this provides a minimum age for Mdeyrij-Hammana Lebanese amber fossils at 125.9 Ma.…”

New and little known crane-fly species of the genera Helius, Elephantomyia and Toxorhina (Diptera, Limoniidae) from Dominican and Mexican amber

“…Until recently, 20 fossil species had been described, mainly from Eocene Baltic amber (Loew, 1850(Loew, , 1851Meunier, 1906;Alexander, 1931;Krzemiński 1985Krzemiński , 1993Podenas, 2002;Kania, 2014), but also from Early Cretaceous of Botswana (Rayner and Waters, 1990), Burma (Ribeiro, 2003), Lebanon (Kania et al, 2013;Krzemiński et al, 2014) and Eocene/Oligocene (Krzemiński, 1991), Oligocene of Germany (Statz, 1934(Statz, , 1944, Oligocene Dominican amber (Podenas and Poinar, 2001), Miocene of Russia (Krzemiński, 2002), Miocene of Mexico (Podenas and Poinar, 2012 than its width; inner gonostylus 1/4 shorter than outer gonostylus, strongly curved at the end directed to its basal part, widened at the base; outer gonostylus elongated, narrow, straight, slightly curved at the end; aedeagus elongated, wide (Figures 5.5,6.3).…”

New fossil representative of the genus Helius (Diptera, Limoniidae) from the little known and newly discovered locality Caergen Village of northeastern Tibetan Plateau (China)

“…The oldest representative of genus Helius (Limoniidae) is known from the Lebanese amber aged Lower Cretaceous (Krzemiński et al, 2014;Kania et al, 2016). The most obvious evolutionary trend in morphology of the genus Helius concerned the mouthparts (Kania, 2014;Kania et al, 2016).…”

“…The first two fossil representatives were described by Loew (1850) from Eocene Baltic amber. The oldest members of the genus were found recently in Lebanon amber from the Lower Cretaceous (Kania et al, 2013;Krzemiński et al, 2014). From the Cretaceous three more species were described: in Burmese amber from mid-Cretaceous (Ribeiro, 2002), from the Upper Cretaceous of Botswana (Rayner and Waters, 1990) and from Cretaceous amber of Alava (Spain) (Kania et al, 2016).…”

“…From the Cretaceous three more species were described: in Burmese amber from mid-Cretaceous (Ribeiro, 2002), from the Upper Cretaceous of Botswana (Rayner and Waters, 1990) and from Cretaceous amber of Alava (Spain) (Kania et al, 2016). However, majority of fossil Helius species were described from Eocene Baltic amber (Loew, 1850;Meunier, 1906;Alexander, 1931;Krzemiński, 1985Krzemiński, , 1993Kania et al, 2013;Krzemiński et al, 2014;Kania, 2014). From the Oligocene, two species are known from Europe (Statz, 1944), one from North America (Krzemiński, 1991) and three in Miocene Dominican and Mexican ambers from Central America (Podenas, 2002;Podenas andPoinar, 2001, 2012;Kopeć et al, 2016).…”