Fossil Record 22(1): 31-44, doi: 10.5194/fr-22-31-2019
Notes on rhopalosomatid wasps of Dominican and Mexican amber (Hymenoptera: Rhopalosomatidae) with a description of the first fossil species of Rhopalosoma Cresson, 1865
expand article infoVolker Lohrmann‡§, Michael Ohl|, Peter Michalik, James P. Pitts#, Laurent Jeanneau¤, Vincent Perrichot¤
‡ Übersee-Museum Bremen, Bremen, Germany§ Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung, Berlin, Germany| Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany¶ Zoologisches Institut und Museum, University of Greifswald, Loitzer Str. 26, 17489 Greifswald, Germany# Department of Biology, Utah State University, 5305 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-5305, United States of America¤ Géosciences Rennes, CNRS, Univ Rennes, UMR 6118, 35000 Rennes, France
© Volker Lohrmann, Michael Ohl, Peter Michalik, James P. Pitts, Laurent Jeanneau, Vincent Perrichot.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Lohrmann V, Ohl M, Michalik P, Pitts JP, Jeanneau L, Perrichot V (2019) Notes on rhopalosomatid wasps of Dominican and Mexican amber (Hymenoptera: Rhopalosomatidae) with a description of the first fossil species of Rhopalosoma Cresson, 1865. Fossil Record 22(1): 31-44. https://doi.org/10.5194/fr-22-31-2019
Open Access
Abstract

Rhopalosomatidae are a family of aculeate wasps that areectoparasitoids of crickets as larvae and are predominantly distributed pantropically.The published fossil record of the family is scarce. Here, we report threenew fossil rhopalosomatid wasp specimens from Dominican and Mexican amber.Rhopalosoma hispaniola Lohrmann sp. nov. is described and documentedfrom Dominican amber by two separate inclusions – one of each sex. Anadditional fossil female Rhopalosoma is described and documentedfrom Mexican amber but is not named due to the insufficient preservation of thefossil. The new fossils, which are morphologically intermediate betweenTownes' isopus and poeyi species groups, do not onlyrepresent the first fossil records of an extant genus of this peculiarfamily but also the first records of the family in Dominican and Mexicanamber.