Insect fossils from the Yukon

• Main Authors: J. V. Matthews, A. Telka
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1997
• Subjects: Yukon; Beringia
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.484.8463; http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/pdf/matthews.pdf

Abstract. Many Quaternary geological exposures in the Yukon have yielded identifiable insect fossils. All groups occurring in the Yukon today except Apterygota and the pterygote orders Ephemeroptera, Mecoptera, Orthoptera, Mallophaga, Anoplura, Thysanoptera and Siphonaptera have been recorded as fossils. Coleoptera dominate, with most beetle fossils being from the Carabidae, Staphylinidae, Curculionidae and sometimes Byrrhidae. For purposes of discussion the fossils from various sites are grouped according to age. One group includes Holocene and modern assemblages. Study of modern assemblages of insect fragments provides baseline informa-tion on taphonomy (the history of postmortal transportation and other events) and preservation. Some of the early Holocene faunas represent an intense warm period that occurred at high latitudes about 10 thousand years ago. A second group of fossil assemblages consists of those deposited during the coldest episode of the last glaciation when large areas of the Yukon were ice free and were part of East Beringia. Some of these samples support the conclusion drawn from plant and mammal fossils that the environment at the time was steppe-like, with no modern analogue. A third group is made up of fossils deposited between about 60 and 30 thousand years ago, an interval commonly called the mid-Wisconsinan. Some of the assemblages from this time period are very diverse; some contain unusual fossils, such as heads of noctuid moths and genital fragments of anthomyiid flies or other fossils that are