Type Specimens of Nearctic Mecoptera in European Museums, including Descriptions of New Species1

Merope tuber Newman (Mecoptera: Meropeidae) Collected in Association with Carrion in Greene County, Ohio, USA: An Infrequent Collection of an Elusive Species

“…The most speciose families are Panorpidae and Bittacidae, which contain 90% of the species within this order (Byers and Thornhill, 1983;Dunford and Somma, 2008), while the family Meropeidae consists of two species (Byers, 1973;Dunford et al, 2008). Merope tuber Newman, or the earwigfly, is primarily found in eastern regions of North America (Byers, 1973;Dunford et al, 2007).…”

“…The most speciose families are Panorpidae and Bittacidae, which contain 90% of the species within this order (Byers and Thornhill, 1983;Dunford and Somma, 2008), while the family Meropeidae consists of two species (Byers, 1973;Dunford et al, 2008). Merope tuber Newman, or the earwigfly, is primarily found in eastern regions of North America (Byers, 1973;Dunford et al, 2007). Fossil records indicate Merope is approximately 280 million y old and closely related to the extinct Boreomerope antiqua Novokschonov from the Middle Jurassic period from Siberia (Byers, 1973;Somma and Dunford, 2007;Dunford et al, 2008).…”

“…Merope tuber Newman, or the earwigfly, is primarily found in eastern regions of North America (Byers, 1973;Dunford et al, 2007). Fossil records indicate Merope is approximately 280 million y old and closely related to the extinct Boreomerope antiqua Novokschonov from the Middle Jurassic period from Siberia (Byers, 1973;Somma and Dunford, 2007;Dunford et al, 2008). The only other extant species within the family, Austromerope poultoni Killington, is found exclusively in Australia (Byers, 1973;Byers, 1991;Abbott et al, 2007;Somma and Dunford, 2007;Dunford et al, 2008).…”

“…Collections of adult Merope tuber are infrequent (Byers, 1973). The first recorded M. tuber specimen collected was a female from Trenton Falls, New York in 1837 (Barber, 1904) and subsequently described by Newman in 1838 (Westwood, 1846;Byers, 1973).…”

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“…Early treatments of the order include Hine's 1898 and 1901 reviews of common scorpionflies and hangingflies, respectively, and Engelhardt's 1915 treatment of the eastern North American fauna. Carpenter (1931) revised the Nearctic Mecoptera, but three of the Ontario species included here were described later in papers by Byers (1962Byers ( , 1973. Several papers since then have dealt with regional scorpionfly faunas.…”