'Rolling' stoneflies (Insecta: Plecoptera) from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber

Pavel Sroka; Arnold H Staniczek; Boris C Kondratieff

doi:10.7717/peerj.5354

'Rolling' stoneflies (Insecta: Plecoptera) from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber

PeerJ. 2018 Jul 26:6:e5354. doi: 10.7717/peerj.5354. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Pavel Sroka¹, Arnold H Staniczek², Boris C Kondratieff³

Affiliations

¹ Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Entomology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
² Department of Entomology, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, Stuttgart, Germany.
³ Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.

Abstract

This contribution describes seven new species of fossil stoneflies from Cretaceous Burmese amber, all of which are dedicated to present and past members of the Rolling Stones. Two species-Petroperla mickjaggeri gen. nov. sp. nov. and Lapisperla keithrichardsi gen. nov. sp. nov.-are placed in a new family Petroperlidae within the stemline of Systellognatha. The first Cretaceous larval specimen of Acroneuriinae, Electroneuria ronwoodi gen. nov. sp. nov., is also described along with another four new species that are placed within the Acroneuriinae genus Largusoperla Chen et al., 2018: Largusoperla charliewattsi sp. nov., Largusoperla brianjonesi sp. nov., Largusoperla micktaylori sp. nov., and Largusoperla billwymani sp. nov. Additional specimens of Acroneuriinae are described without formal assignment to new species due to insufficient preservation. Implications for stonefly phylogeny and palaeobiogeography are discussed.

Keywords: Amber; Burmese; Cretaceous; New family; New genus; New species; Paleontology; Plecoptera; Rolling Stones; Stoneflies.

Grants and funding

The Society for the Promotion of the Natural History Museum Stuttgart funded the acquisition of several specimens described in this contribution. This research received support for Pavel Sroka from the SYNTHESYS Project http://www.synthesys.info/, which was financed by European Community Research Infrastructure Action under the FP7 ‘Capacities’ Program and institutional support RVO: 60077344. This publication received funding from the CSU Libraries Open Access Research and Scholarship (OARS) Fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.