First fossil record of polypore fungus beetles from Lower Cretaceous amber of France Carmen Soriano, Darren Pollock, Didier Néraudeau, Andre Nel, Paul Tafforeau To cite this version: Carmen Soriano, Darren Pollock, Didier Néraudeau, Andre Nel, Paul Tafforeau. First fossil record of polypore fungus beetles from Lower Cretaceous amber of France. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Instytut Paleobiologii, 2014, 59 (4), pp.941 - 946. 10.4202/app.2012.0074. insu-01118502 HAL Id: insu-01118502 https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01118502 Submitted on 19 Feb 2015 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. First fossil record of polypore fungus beetles from Lower Cretaceous amber of France CARMEN SORIANO, DARREN POLLOCK, DIDIER NÉRAUDEAU, ANDRE NEL, and PAUL TAFFOREAU Soriano, C., Pollock, D., Néraudeau, D., Nel, A., and Tafforeau, P. 2014. First fossil record of polypore fungus beetles from Lower Cretaceous amber of France. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 59 (4): 941–946. The first fossil genus and species of Tetratomidae (Coleoptera) is described, from the Lower Cretaceous amber deposits of France. The new genus represents the first insect to be recognized inside an opaque piece of amber, through the use of propagation phase contrast X-ray microtomography using synchrotron radiation. This new finding proves the capabil- ities of this imaging technique in amber inclusions, as well as increases the knowledge of fossil tenebrionoids, a group scarcely recognized in the Cretaceous fossil record. Key words: Coleoptera, Tetratomidae, amber, propagation phase contrast X-Ray microtomography, synchrotron, Cretaceous, Charentes, France. Carmen Soriano [[email protected]] and Paul Tafforeau [[email protected]], European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, 6 rue Jules Horowitz, 38043 Grenoble, France; Darren Pollock [[email protected]], Department of Biology, Eastern New Mexico University, NM 88130 Por- tales, USA; Didier Néraudaeu [[email protected]], Géosciences Rennes and CNRS UMR 6118, Campus de Beau- lieu, bâtiment 15, 263 Avenue du Général Leclerc, 35042 Rennes Cedex, France; Andre Nel [[email protected]], CNRS UMR 7205, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, CP50, Entomologie, 45 Rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France. Received 30 May 2012, accepted 29 July 2013, available online 9 August 2013. Copyright © 2014 C. Soriano et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. beetles (Ponomarenko 1995, 2004; Krell 2006). Therefore, Introduction beetles are generally excluded from most of the monographs on fossil localities where insects are found, and thousands of Beetles are the most diverse group of animals, constituting more than 20% of the total animal biodiversity on Earth. specimens remain unstudied in collections all over the world. The first record of this order is from the Asselian to earliest The use of some new three-dimensional imaging tech- Sakmarian of Grügelborn/Saarland (Germany) and the Art- niques, such as Synchrotron X-Ray microtomography (Taf- inskian of Obora (Czech Republic) as the putative Pennsyl- foreau et al. 2006; Lak et al. 2008; Soriano et al. 2010), can vanian beetle from Mazon Creek (USA) (after Béthoux 2009) render and characterize the maximum level of anatomical does not belong to this clade (Ponomarenko 2002; Kirejtshuk detail of fossil beetles, thus making it possible to study the et al. 2014). In Triassic deposits, beetles already comprise systematic position of these specimens. the major part of the insect diversity in most outcrops. In the The specimen described was collected from the Arch- Upper Cretaceous entomofauna, about 50% of the Recent ingeay-Les Nouillers amber locality (herein simplified as families are already recognized (Ponomarenko 1995, 2002). Archingeay), the most fossiliferous Cretaceous French am- Even though beetles are very common as fossils, the study ber deposit (Perrichot and Néraudeau 2009). The Late Albi- of the anatomy and systematics of these specimens is scarce, an–Cenomanian period is one of the warmest of the last 140 especially for Mesozoic fossils. This has been attributed to million years. The climate was warm and humid, and the several factors, such as the incompleteness of the fossil spec- amber forest was located close to the sea shore or was at least imens, the lack of sufficient diagnostic characters in many temporarily under marine influence, probably an easturine families (descriptions based only on Recent material) and the area (Néraudeau et al. 2002; Girard et al. 2009). The resin is autapomorphic states of characters in many Mesozoic fossil of gymnosperm origin. Acta Palaeontol. Pol. 59 (4): 941–946, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.4202/app.2012.0074 942 ACTA PALAEONTOLOGICA POLONICA 59 (4), 2014 The deposit is unique in that a large percentage of the in- I, one at Eastern New Mexico University and one at the Eu- clusions represent litter fauna (Néraudeau et al. 2002; Adl et ropean Synchrotron Radiation Facility. al. 2011). Coleopteran inclusions are not very frequent in this The original specimen is housed in the Laboratory of Pa- amber; members of the families Bostrichidae, unidentified laeontology of the University of Rennes I, under the collection Cucujoidea, Curculionidae, Limnichidae, Nemonychidae, number IGR.ARC-330.1. The specimen is in the same piece Ripiphoridae, Staphylinidae, and Tetratomidae have been with four other inclusions: one Hemiptera (Aphidoidea), one recognized or described (Perrichot et al. 2004, 2010). Lepidoptera, one Hymenoptera (?Chrysidoidea), and one un- Tetratomidae is a small family of Tenebrionoidea (13 determined insect. genera and about species) (Nikitsky 1998; Lawrence and Leschen 2010), the members of which were formerly placed in numerous other families. Extant species of the subfami- Systematic paleontology ly Eustrophinae, of which this new taxon is a member, are known from the Nearctic, Neotropical, Afrotropical (includ- Order Coleoptera Linnaeus, 1758 ing Madagascar) and Oriental regions; they are notably ab- sent from Australia and New Zealand (Pollock 2012). Family Tetratomidae Billberg, 1820 Subfamily Eustrophinae Gistel, 1856 Institutional abbreviations.—ESRF, European Synchrotron Tribe Holostrophini Nikitsky, 1998 Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France; IGR.ARC, Laboratory of Palaeontology, University of Rennes I, France. Genus Synchrotronia Soriano and Pollock nov. Etymology: After the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, where the specimen was detected and reconstructed. This specimen is the first one ever discovered in opaque amber using a Material and methods synchrotron. Type species: Synchrotronia idinineteena Soriano and Pollock sp. nov. The specimen is included in a completely opaque piece of here designated by monotypy. amber from the Lower Cretaceous of France. Due to the im- possibility of surveying the interior of the piece due to the Diagnosis.—Eyes widely separated, distance between them opacity, propagation phase contrast X-ray synchrotron mi- greater than diameter of single eye, slightly emarginate crotomography (afterwards PPC-SRμCT) was used to recog- around antennal insertion; antennae elongate, extended pos- nize any possible inclusion inside the amber. The specimen teriorly well beyond posterior pronotal margin, antennom- was scanned following the protocols described in Lak et al. eres 4–10 distinctly triangular, longer than wide, subequal (2008) with a set energy of 30 keV (using a double Si 111 in width, without distal club; prosternal process elongate, Bragg monochromator) and 960 mm of distance between the narrowed and rounded posteriorly, extended to midlength of camera and the sample. Scan acquisition consisted of 1999 mesoventrite, received in concavity on mesoventrite; tibiae images over 180º, with 0.7 s of exposure time, and 5.06 μ simple, without series of transverse furrows; dorsal body of voxel size. After the scan, the slices were reconstructed surface seemingly glabrous, without obvious deep, coarse using a filtered back-projection algorithm adapted for local punctation or striation; base of pronotum without distinct tomography applications (PyHST software, ESRF). The later pair of impressions. three-dimensional processing was made using VGStudioMax Synchrotronia idinineteena Soriano and Pollock sp. nov. 2.1 software (Volume Graphics, Heidelberg, Germany). By using this method it is possible not only to examine Fig. 1. the habitus of the fossil under all desirable angles, but also Etymology: After beamline ID19, in which the specimen was detected to see internal structures which are usually not available in and imaged. fossil insects (structure of the head, thorax, abdomen and Holotype: Specimen IGR.ARC-330.1, figured in Tafforeau et al. hidden hind wings). This method is especially interesting (2006), but no description was provided. for future