Ommatidae
Family Beelte
Class Insecta,
Order Coleoptera, Family Ommatidae
Geological
Time: Late Cretaceous, Cenomanian Stage (~100 million years ago)
Size (25.4
mm = 1 inch): Amber: 13 mm long, 8 mm across, Inclusion: 3 mm
Fossil Site:
Hukawng Valley, Kachin State, Myanmar
Code: MYA14
Price: $450.00
|  Description:
It has been said that the biologist J S B Haldane when asked
by some theologians what he could infer about the Creator he
is said to have replied: He has an inordinate fondness for beetles.
Indeed there are some 400,000 known extant species of beetle,
about 40 percent of all known insect species. The oldest amber
containing insects comes from the deposits of Lebanon at some
135 million years of age. Deposits in Myanmar, New Jersey, and
Japan are somewhat younger. Burmite holds the most of the Cretaceous
families with some 28 know as of2002, with19 familiues known
at that time from Lebanon, and some 10 families from New Jersey.
This one is a member of the family Ommatidae, with some 13 extinct
genera with over 100 species. The family is regarded as having
the most ancestral characters of beetles, and the two known genera
are currently restricted to Australia and South America.
Also
see: Cretaceous
Jersimantis luzzii praying mantis in amber and Pseudoscorpion
in Cretaceous Fossil Amber and Centipede
in Cretaceous Amber
- References:
AMNH Novitates, No. 3361, Mar 26, 2002.
- Geologica
Carpathica, April 2015, 66, 2, pp 133-138.
|
|
