A brief review of Odonata in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber

Abstract

Odonatans are rare as amber inclusions, but quite diverse in Cretaceous Burmese amber. In the past two years, over 20 new species have been found by the present authors after studying over 250 odonatans from 300,000 amber inclusions. Most of them have now been published, and here we provide a brief review. Three suborders of crown Odonata have been recorded, including the damselfly families or superfamilies Platycnemididae, Platystictidae, Perilestidae, Hemiphlebiidae, Coenagrionoidea, Pseudostigmatoidea, Mesomegaloprepidae and Dysagrionidae, plus the dragonfly families Lindeniidae, Gomphaeschnidae and Burmaeshnidae, and the damsel-dragonfly family Burmaphlebiidae.

Evolutionary history and divergence times of Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) revealed through transcriptomics

“…Notably, the group does not seem to have experienced important radiation events or severe replacement of its constituents. A possible exception is a putative mid-Cretaceous diversification of Zygoptera, suggested by both our analysis and the content of Myanmar amber (Zheng and Jarzembowski, 2020), which would then be concomitant with the latest record of the yProtomyrmeleontoidea, which, judging from their wing morphology, must have occupied a flight mode niche similar to that of non-Calopterygidae Zygoptera.…”

A new fossil piddock (Bivalvia: Pholadidae) may indicate estuarine to freshwater environments near Cretaceous amber-producing forests in Myanmar

“…Conversely, the Kachin amber houses a diverse assemblage of freshwater taxa such as caddisflies [32][33][34][35] , mayflies [36][37][38][39] , stoneflies 40 , chironomids 41 , water measurers 42,43 , odonates [44][45][46][47][48] and their stem lineage 49 . It is known that insects rarely occur in marine and brackish environments 50 , although recent saltwater-tolerant or even marine species exist among several orders, e.g.…”