New fossils of Elateridae (Insecta, Coleoptera) from Early Cretaceous Jinju Formation (South Korea) with their implications to evolutionary diversity of extinct Protagrypninae

Jae-Cheon Sohn; Gi Soo Nam; Sei-Woong Choi; Dong Ren

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0225502

New fossils of Elateridae (Insecta, Coleoptera) from Early Cretaceous Jinju Formation (South Korea) with their implications to evolutionary diversity of extinct Protagrypninae

PLoS One. 2019 Dec 11;14(12):e0225502. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225502. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Jae-Cheon Sohn¹, Gi Soo Nam¹, Sei-Woong Choi², Dong Ren³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Science Education, Gongju National University of Education, Gongju, Chungnam, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Environmental Education, Mokpo National University, Muan, Jeonnam, Republic of Korea.
³ Capital Normal University, Beijing, PR China.

Abstract

Two new genera and species of Elateridae, Megalithomerus magohalmii gen. et sp. nov. and Koreagrypnus jinju gen. et sp. nov., are described based on two pairs of fossils from the late Early Cretaceous Jinju Formation in Jinju City, South Korea. Both Megalithomerus and Koreagrypnus represent the youngest occurrences of an extinct elaterid subfamily, Protagrypninae. Megalithomerus magohalmii is the largest known fossil elaterid. These newly described elaterids provide a better understanding of the morphological diversity and occurrence of Protagrypninae through geologic time.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Biodiversity*
Biological Evolution*
Coleoptera / physiology*
Extinction, Biological*
Fossils*
Republic of Korea

Grants and funding

This work was supported by NRF-2017R1D1A2B05028793 (the National Research Foundation of Korea) to JCS; 41688103 (the National Natural Science Foundation of China) & IRT-17R75 (Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University) to DR. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.