Arthropods found in Burmese amber

[Halichoeres]

I don't know, maybe I should just start a thread for amazing insects in Burmese amber and just add to it every time there's a new species (more than once a month lately). Here's Burmantis hexispinea (nice portmanteau).



Paper (paywall): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667118300478

[Faelrin]

Really cool looking mantis, and its wings are gorgeously preserved. Are its eyes actually blue? I like the name too, lol.

[Halichoeres]

My guess (I can't access the full text myself) is that the eyes have a combination of structural and pigment color, but only the structural blue persists. I believe most other colors would denature, amber or no amber. Perhaps the eyes were green in life.

[DinoToyForum]

Gorgeous. Just a matter of time before we find a tiny pterosaur in amber...

[Halichoeres]

I've decided to just add new insects to this thread whenever I hear of their being found. Here are four new genera from a family of beetles called, and I'm not making this up, the handsome fungus beetles (Endomychidae). All found in Burmese amber, the new genera are:

Burmalestes
Cretaparamecus
Cretolestes
Palaeomycetes

This paper also renames the Eocene genus Laima to Zemyna, as Laima is preoccupied by a brachiopod.

They look roughly like this:


Paper (paywall): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667118301605

[Ravonium]

Nice insects    Once again, thanks for sharing all these amazing new discoveries.

P.S. I agree Burmantis is a good and creative name.

the handsome fungus beetles (Endomychidae).

To be fair on them, some of their modern representatives are fairly well dressed (in terms of colours)    Take a look at this one for example:

[Halichoeres]

I definitely agree that they deserve their name, but it is a very whimsical one! Many of them are really quite dapper.

[Halichoeres]

Two new species of crane fly in the existing genus Dacochile, first erected in 2004 for another species in Burmese amber. Here's a photo of one of the new ones:



Paper (paywall): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2018.1494735

[Jose S.M.]

Amber has given the world very nice specimens I love how the wings are that well preserved. Thanks for sharing.

[Halichoeres]

Two new wasp species, which share the new genus Burmusculus:



Paper (paywall): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667118300715

[Halichoeres]

Now a burrowing bug: Chilamnestocoris mixtus:



Open access: https://paleorxiv.org/e5qsu/

[Halichoeres]

The hits keep coming. Here are seven new species of stonefly in the new genera Petroperla, Electroneuria, and Lapisperla, and the existing genus Largusoperla. They're known from a mix of adults and larvae/nymphs, and all named for members of the Rolling Stones.

Here's Petroperla mickjaggeri:


Paper ('Rolling' stoneflies (Insecta: Plecoptera) from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber; open access): https://farm1.staticflickr.com/929/28905950307_3079f924b6_c.jpg

[Ravonium]

Nice, we have water insects in amber now! 

[Ravonium]

Here's a fairly interesting new discovery, a new genus and species of boganiid beetle from the mid-Cretaceous; Cretoparacucujus cycadophillus. It was preserved alongside cycad pollen, making this the earliest definitive fossil evidence of an insect-cycad relationship.



Link to a pdf of the paper: https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2818%2930827-3
Link to an article about the specimen and its implications for origins of beetle pollination of cycads: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/caos-abd081418.php

[Halichoeres]

Yes! Thanks for the contribution

[Halichoeres]

Some weevils in two new genera: Burmocorynus and Burmomacer!



Paper is paywalled, unforunately: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2018.1504936?journalCode=ghbi20

[Halichoeres]

Caddisflies! This paper describes nine new species of the Cretaceous caddisfly genus Palerasnitsynus.


Here's P. sukatchevae

Open access: http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.18476/pale.11.a8

[Halichoeres]

A cockroach! Check out the weird feet of Nodosigalea burmanica:



It looks like it's open access, but I can get you the pdf if not:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667118301216

[Halichoeres]

This is totally wild: the larva of a twisted-wing insect (Strepsiptera) found in amber. These insects are tiny endoparasites of other insects, and it looks like they've had that lifestyle since the Cenomanian, based on this unbelievably tiny larva.


That scale bar is 50 µm. The entire animal is 197 µm long (that's 8 thousandths of an inch)

Article:
https://peerj.com/articles/5943/

[Ravonium]

It's been a while since this thread was updated, but here's the most recent Burmese amber discovery I could find; two new species of polyphygan beetles: Acalyptomerus thayerae and Sphaerothorax uenoi.





PDF of paper here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2018.2175