Eocene Giant Lacewings (Neuroptera

Earth System Processes 2 (8–11 August 2005) Paper No. 15-2 Presentation Time: 2:10 PM-2:30 PM

EOCENE GIANT LACEWINGS (NEUROPTERA: POLYSTOECHOTIDAE) FROM THE OKANAGAN HIGHLANDS (BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA AND WASHINGTON STATE, USA), FLORISSANT (COLORADO, USA), AND DENMARK

ARCHIBALD, S. Bruce, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, [email protected] and MAKARKIN, Vladimir N., Institute of Biology and Soil Sciences, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, 690022, Russia

The known Cenozoic fossil record of Polystoechotidae is restricted to the Eocene, and includes 16 species (14 named), in two genera. These range from the earliest Ypresian of Denmark; the middle to latest Ypresian of the Okanagan Highlands, British Columbia and Washington State; and the latest Priabonian from Florissant, Colorado. A new species of Palaeopsychops Andersen, from Horsefly River, British Columbia, bears a dense cover of hairs across a portion of the hind wing membrane, not previously known in the order. Fossils of the order Neuroptera may be usually excluded or reduced in most fossil assemblages by their large wings in relation to body mass, which extends floating time in actualistic studies. In the Danish Fur Formation, however, Neuroptera (and Polystoechotidae) are well represented, along with Lepidoptera, likely usually excluded from compression fossil assemblages for similar reasons. Factors such as passive aerial transport combined with the presence of diatom aggregates acting as sticky traps may have enhanced their fossil assemblage representation there. Dispersal of Palaeopsychops between Denmark and the Okanagan Highlands (direction unknown) was likely by the North Atlantic route, not before the late Paleocene, during periods of continuous land connection between North America and northern Europe. Polystoechotidae in the Eocene, as today, appear to have ranged in forested regions of microthermal to lower mesothermal climate where habitat climatic parameters are known.

Earth System Processes 2 (8–11 August 2005)

Session No. T8 Paleogene Biota and Climates of Western North America: Atmospheric, Biological, and Geological Processes on a Warm World Westin Hotel: Lakeview Endrooms 1:30 PM-4:30 PM, Tuesday, August 9, 2005

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The Early Eocene Okanagan Highlands lagerstätten occur across a thousand kilometer transect of southern interior of British Columbia, Canada and northern Washington, USA (Fig. 1). They are well situated to illuminate the origins of modern terrestrial communities 2008). Data from climate proxies such as the size and shape of dicot leaves, the frequency of leaf stomata, the taxonomic composition of micro- and macrofloras, and isotopes, in combination with computer modelling has allowed detailed characterizations of Eocene environments and assessment of potential forcing factors (e.g., Greenwood et al. The Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) spans the Southern Interior of the province, linking Vancouver Island, Vancouver and the Fraser Valley with the Rocky Mountains at Golden, including Stein Valley Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park, Shuswap Lake and Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Parks, and Mount Revelstoke, Glacier, and Yoho National Parks. You can’t really say you know British Columbia until you’ve travelled the area covered here, certainly one of the liveliest. Once you leave the Fraser Valley north of Hope, you’re suddenly into some great driving. Highway 5 links Merritt in the Okanagan-Boundary to the south and Barriere in Central Interior to the north with Highway 1 at Kamloops. Their distribution in the United States and Canada is restricted to western regions. Numerous fossil Raphidioptera have been reported from the Cenozoic of North America. Two have been de-scribed and named from Okanagan Highlands localities in Undescribed raphidiopterans have been figured or briefly mentioned from other Okanagan Highlands sites at Republic (Washington, United States of America), McAbee and the Allenby Formation at One Mile Creek (Canada) (Wehr & Barksdale, 1996; Archibald & Farrell, 2003; Greenwood et al., 2005; Archibald et al., 2013a). British Columbia was a small set of extremely isolated outposts. It was not connected by railways to parts farther east until the transcontinental railway was completed in 1885. There, you've got your three Prairie provincial legislatures, copied quite understandably from the nearest subfederal example, the domed structures with Roman columns, Mid-West state capitals.