Monday, December 11, 2006
D0140

Weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) of early Miocene amber from the Dominican Republic

Steve Davis, steved@ku.edu and Michael S. Engel, msengel@ku.edu. University of Kansas, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Division of Entomology, Natural History Museum, 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard, Dyche Hall, Lawrence, KS

While numerous lineages of weevils have been recorded from Tertiary ambers of the New World, only a few species have been hitherto described from these deposits. This is remarkable given the relatively considerable attention focused on weevils in other amber deposits or as compressions. Admittedly, the faunas of Dominican and Mexican amber are too young to provide insight into the diversification of a lineage as old as the Curculionidae but these species do give perspective on localized extinctions and biogeographic patterns among and within genera of particular New World weevil clades. As such these fossils are deserving of our attention. Herein we provide brief descriptions of a recently identified and remarkable zygopine weevil (Conoderinae), the first fossil Caulophilus (Cossoninae), the first two species of Dryophthorinae recorded in amber, a new species of Cenocephalus (Platypodinae), and a brief review of other weevils in Early Miocene (Burdigalian, ca. 19 million years) amber from the Dominican Republic


Species 1: Coleoptera Curculionidae Caulophilus ashei
Species 2: Coleoptera Curculionidae Dryophthorus acarophilus
Species 3: Coleoptera Curculionidae Cenocephalus quasiexquisitus