The first fossil salmonfly (Insecta: Plecoptera: Pteronarcyidae), back to the Middle Jurassic

• Published in: BMC Evolutionary Biology
• Main Authors: Cui, Yingying, Bethoux, Olivier, Kondratieff, Boris, Shih, Chungkun, Ren, Dong
• Other Authors: Centre de recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements (CR2P), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Capital Normal University Beijing, Colorado State University Fort Collins (CSU), Department of Paleobiology Washington, Smithsonian Institution, ANR-10-LABX-0003,BCDiv,Biological and Cultural Diversities : Origins, Evolution, Interactions, Future(2010), ANR-11-IDEX-0004,SUPER,Sorbonne Universités à Paris pour l'Enseignement et la Recherche(2011)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.PG]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Paleontology; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01387995; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01387995/document; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01387995/file/art_10.1186_s12862-016-0787-9.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-016-0787-9

International audience BackgroundThe fossil record of Plecoptera (stoneflies) is considered relatively complete, with stem-groups of each of the three major lineages, viz. Antarctoperlaria, Euholognatha and Systellognatha (and some of their families) represented in the Mesozoic. However, the family Pteronarcyidae (the salmonflies; including two genera, Pteronarcys and Pteronarcella) has no fossil record to date, and the family has been suggested to have diverged recently.ResultsIn this paper, we report on a set of specimens belonging to a new fossil species of stonefly, discovered from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou locality (China). Our comparative analysis of wing venation and body characters demonstrates that the new species belongs to the Pteronarcyidae, and is more closely related to Pteronarcys than to Pteronarcella. However, it differs from all known species of the former genus. It is therefore assigned to a new genus and named Pteroliriope sinitshenkovae gen. et sp. nov. under the traditional nomenclatural procedure. The cladotypic nomenclatural procedure is also employed, with the resulting combination Pteroliriope nec Pteronarcys sinitshenkovae sp. nov.ConclusionsThe first discovery of a fossil member of the Pteronarcyidae demonstrates that the corresponding lineage is not a very recent offshoot but was already present ca. 165 million years ago. This discovery concurs with the view that divergence of most stonefly families took place very early, probably in the Triassic, or even in the Permian. This contribution demonstrates the need for (re-)investigations of the systematics of fossil stoneflies to refine divergence date estimates for Plecoptera lineages.