Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 8:17 AM
0825

A bark beetle in Cretaceous amber from Myanmar (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae)

Anthony, I. Cognato, cognato@msu.edu, Michigan State University, Department of Entomology, 243 Natural Science Building, East Lansing, MI and David Grimaldi, grimaldi@amnh.org, American Museum of Natural History, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY.

Bark and ambrosia beetles have unique significance in forest ecosystems, particularly boreal forests. While fossilized galleries of scolytines have been reported in Late Mesozoic wood, here we describe a well preserved body fossil in amber from the mid-Cretaceous of northern Myanmar, c. 100 myo. Moreover, the specimen is remarkably similar to recent species of the genus Microborus, revealing unexpected stasis within scolytines and thus antiquity of the group.


Species 1: Coleoptera Curculionidae Microborus new species