ew handsome fungus beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinelloidea: Anamorphidae, Endomychidae) from European amber of the Upper Eocene

First Member of ‘Higher Endomychidae’ (Coleoptera: Coccinelloidea) from the Mid-Cretaceous Amber of Myanmar and New Insights into the Time of Origin of the Handsome Fungus Beetles

“…Representatives of Endomychidae sensu lato in the fossil record have appeared in several publications [ 1 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ], but only very few Cenozoic taxa have been properly named and formally described until recently [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Among 16 genera of Endomychidae sensu lato from the Eocene reported in the literature, only 13 species are formally described, 12 from the Baltic and Bitterfeld ambers (ca.…”

“…53 Ma). Many of them are recently described members of Anamorphidae from the Eocene Baltic and Bitterfeld amber, one classified in Symbiotes Redtenbacher, and four in extinct monotypic genera: Gramboale , Kleinzaches , Palaecoryphus, and Giltine [ 9 ]. Some species of Endomychidae from the Eocene Baltic amber have been, at least initially, assigned to extant genera, e.g., Trochoideus , Holoparamecus , Mycetina, or Lycoperdina .…”

“…Of the properly described taxa of Endomychidae sensu stricto from the Eocene, Palaeoestes Kirejtshuk & Nel (French Oise amber), Phymaphoroides Motschulsky, and Glesirhanis Shockley & Alekseev (Baltic amber) represent extinct genera of Leiestinae and Zemyna Tomaszewska (= Laima Alekseev & Tomaszewska) (Baltic amber) is the only known extinct genus of the subfamily Endomychinae. Two species of Trochoideus described by Alekseev and Tomaszewska [ 9 ] are the only Eocene species classified in the extant genus of the subfamily Pleganophorinae. While two species of Holoparamecus described by Reike et al [ 10 ] represent the only Eocene species of this extant genus of the endomychid subfamily Merophysiinae (although treated as family Merophysiidae by these authors, ignoring the results of numerous research based on morphological and molecular data sets (e.g., [ 4 , 5 , 7 ])).…”

“…Only 14 species of Endomychidae sensu stricto have been formally described to the present. Among them, eight species, representatives of subfamilies Leiestinae, Merophysiinae, Pleganophorinae, and Endomychinae, have been described from Cenozoic ambers (Eocene Baltic, Bitterfeld, and French amber from Oise) [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. Even more intriguing and systematically significant fossil Endomychidae, important for elucidating the origin and early evolution of the family, come from Mesozoic deposits.…”

Rhomeocalpsua torosa gen. et sp. nov., a unique lineage of Endomychidae from mid‑Cretaceous Burmese amber (Coleoptera: Coccinelloidea)

“…Mesozoic endomychids that are important for elucidating the origin and early evolution of the family are very sparse (Tomaszewska et al, 2018), while several endomychids have been formally described from Cenozoic ambers of Europe (e.g., Shockley & Alekseev, 2014;Alekseev & Tomaszewska, 2018;Reike et al, 2020; see also the list by Shockley et al, 2009a). The mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber has offered invaluable well-preserved fossils for our understanding of character evolution, phylogeny, biogeography, and palaeoecology of beetles (e.g., Cai et al, 2017aCai et al, , b, 2018Cai et al, , 2019aGimmel et al, 2019;Tihelka et al, 2021a).…”