Fossil Record 22(2): 119-123, doi: 10.5194/fr-22-119-2019
On the first Silis Charpentier, 1825 from Baltic amber (Coleoptera, Cantharidae)
expand article infoFrancesco Parisi‡, Fabrizio Fanti§
‡ Dipartimento Agricoltura, Ambiente e Alimenti, Università degli Studi del Molise, Via De Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso, Italy§ independent researcher: Via del Tamburino 69, 53040 Piazze, Siena, Italy
© Francesco Parisi, Fabrizio Fanti.
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: Parisi F, Fanti F (2019) On the first Silis Charpentier, 1825 from Baltic amber (Coleoptera, Cantharidae). Fossil Record 22(2): 119-123. https://doi.org/10.5194/fr-22-119-2019
Open Access
Abstract

Only in recent years have new genera and species of the subfamilySilinae Mulsant, 1862 been described as inclusions in amber. However,no representative of the genus Silis Charpentier, 1825 had been described fromBaltic amber, even if few specimens were already known at the generic level.Silis lombardii sp. nov. is entirely dark brown and shows (as usual for the genus) thetwo characteristic lobes in the sides of pronotum, elongated elytra, and abasal small tooth only on the anterior claws. The Eocene findings show thatthe subfamily is of ancient origin and that at least in the Eocene it wasmuch more abundant than today in the same territories, where only twospecies are known. (urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:76887127-3D24-41DA-86CC-7DCAB40DC3B7)