New species of belytine and diapriine wasps (Hymenoptera: Diapriidae) from Eocene Baltic amber

Abstract

The fossil diversity of Diapriidae in Baltic amber, dated Upper Eocene, has been poorly investigated. However, some studies suggest that this family was already diversified at this time. This is supported by our present study of the Baltic amber collection of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, from which we describe and figure ten new species belonging to the subfamilies Belytinae: Belyta knudhoejgaardi sp. nov., Cinetus breviscapus sp. nov., Cinetus elongatus sp. nov., Pantoclis globosa sp. nov., Pantolyta augustinusii sp. nov., Pantolyta chemyrevae sp. nov., Pantolyta similis sp. nov.; and Diapriinae: Basalys villumi sp. nov., Doliopria baltica sp. nov. and Spilomicrus succinalis sp. nov. The diversity of extant genera observed leads us to propose an origin in the early Cenozoic for these taxa. The fossil record of the Diapriidae in Baltic amber is also summarized.

A fossil flat wasp (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae) from the early Eocene Green River Formation suggests past cosmopolitan distribution of the genus Eupsenella Westwood, 1874

“…A similar pattern of regression toward tropical or subtropical latitudes has been observed in various hymenopteran families, e.g., Megalyridae (Megalyra Westwood, 1832 in Baltic amber; Poinar & Shaw 2007), Formicidae (Carebara Westwood, 1840, Gesomyrmex Mayr, 1868, Tetraponera Smith, 1852Perkovsky 2016), Diapriidae (Doliopria Kieffer, 1910 in Baltic amber;Brazidec & Vilhelmsen 2022), Mymaridae (Borneomymar Huber, 2002 in Baltic amber;Engel et al 2013) or Scolebythidae (Pristapenesia Brues, 1933 in Baltic amber;Brues 1933). The regression of Eupsenella could be documented by screening younger ambers from southeastern Asia, e.g., Miocene Zhangpu amber, China (Wang et al 2021), Sumatra amber, Indonesia (Ngô-Muller et al 2019), or McGrath Flats, Australia (McCurry et al 2022.…”