Journal of Paleontology, 92(6), 2018, p. 1049–1053 Copyright © 2018, The Paleontological Society 0022-3360/15/0088-0906 doi: 10.1017/jpa.2018.33


A new damsel-dragonfly of the small family Selenothemistidae from the Late Jurassic of China (Odonata, Isophlebioptera)


Diying Huang,1∗ Chenyang Cai,2 and André Nel3∗


1State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, People’s Republic of China ⟨dyhuang@nigpas.ac.cn⟩ 2CAS Key Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of


Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China ⟨cycai@nigpas.ac.cn⟩ 3Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité, ISYEB - UMR 7205 – CNRS, MNHN, UPMC, EPHE, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, 57 rue Cuvier, CP 50, Entomologie F-75005, Paris, France ⟨anel@mnhn.fr⟩


Abstract.—Sinothemis difficilis new genus new species, youngest and first accurate Chinese representative of the small family Selenothemistidae, is described and illustrated. It is closely related to the genus Turanothemis, known from the Karatau outcrop in Kazakhstan. The genus Caraphlebia, known from the Middle Jurassic of Antarctica, seems to strongly differ from the other representatives of this family and may belong to another family. The fossil was collected from the Upper Jurassic (157.3 ± 1.5Ma; near Oxfordian/Kimmeridgian boundary) Guancaishan locality, Jianping County, Western Liaoning, NE China. It belongs to the late assemblage of the Yanliao biota, while the early assemblage is represented by the putatively close damsel-dragonfly Paraliassophlebia from the Jiulongshan Formation of northern Hebei Province.


UUID: http://zoobank.org/8b11b148-852e-4079-a9fb-1884bf4b6d94


Introduction


The large Mesozoic odonatan clade Isophlebioptera Bechly, 1996 comprises no less than 11 families (Bechly, 1996; Nel et al., 2009; see also Phylogenetic Systematics of Odonata, https://bechly.lima-city.de/system.htm), recorded between the Late Triassic and the Late Cretaceous. Some are very diverse (e.g., Campterophlebiidae Handlirsch, 1920 and Isophlebiidae Handlirsch, 1920), while others are very poorly documented (e.g., the small family Paragonophlebiidae Nel, 2009; note that the genus Mongolothemis Pritykina and Vasilenko, 2014 is a junior synonym of Paragonophlebia Nel, 2009, as these authors ignored Nel’s paper and erroneously attributed this fossil to the


Euthemistidae Pritykina, 1968). Among these damsel-dragon- flies, the small Jurassic family Selenothemistidae Handlirsch, 1939 comprises only three (or four) genera for a very wide distribution, as it is known from Western Europe, Antarctica, Kazakhstan, and maybe China, with the enigmatic taxon Para- liassophlebia Hong, 1982 (see Bechly, 1996; see also Phylo- genetic Systematics of Odonata, https://bechly.lima-city.de/ system.htm). Here we describe the first accurate Chinese representative of this family, which is closely related to the Oxfordian representative from Kazakhstan.


Geologic settings


The new damsel-dragonfly comes from the Guancaishan local- ity near the Muyingzi Village, Shahai Township, Jianping


∗ Corresponding authors


County, Western Liaoning Province, NE China. The holotype was collected by one of us (C.C.) in 2013. The Guancaishan locality has yielded very rich fossils, including various insects, bivalves, plants, and especially abundant salamanders (Gao and Shubin, 2012; Wang et al., 2015). The fossil insect was preserved in a black shale layer with a rich associated fossil entomofauna. A volcanic ash layer located less than 1 meter above the black shale was dated as 157.3±1.5 Ma (U-Pb SIMS), indicating that the insect lived in a period around the boundary of Oxfordian and Kimmeridgian (Huang, 2016) (Fig. 1). The new fossil can be attributed to the Linglongta biota,


which belongs to the late assemblage of the famous Yanliao biota, while the early assemblage is represented by the Daohugou biota (Huang, 2016). Huang (2015) suggested that the age of the Linglongta biota correlates with that of the Karatau biota. The studied fossil has been collected near the upper-most layer of the Linglongta beds at Guancaishan, indicating a possible slightly later age than that of Karatau, the latter being suggested as Oxfordian. Contrasting with the Daohugou biota represented by a very diverse and well- described entomofauna, the Linglongta biota (Tiaojishan Formation) has yielded numerous fossil insects but only one species (Coleoptera, Ommatidae) has been formally descri- bed based on a well-preserved compression from Daxishan, Jianchang County, Liaoning Province (Cai andHuang, 2017). The new fossil damsel-dragonfly described here represents the first described fossil insect from the Guanchaishan local- ity and the second fossil described from the Tiaojishan Formation.


1049


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182  |  Page 183  |  Page 184  |  Page 185  |  Page 186  |  Page 187  |  Page 188  |  Page 189  |  Page 190