A new white-spotted moray eel, Gymnothorax aurocephalus sp. nov. (Muraenidae: Muraeninae) from Andaman Sea, India
ZOOTAXA
Authors: Nashad, M.; Mohapatra, Anil; Varghese, Sijo P.; Ramalingam, L.; Bineesh, K. K.; Mohanty, Swarup Ranjan
Abstract
Gymnothorax aurocephalus sp. nov. is described herein based on 4 specimens. Three were collected from off Swaraj Dweep Island of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (A&N Islands) from a depth of 125-130 m and one specimen off Interview Island, A&N Islands at a depth of 90 m. This new species is distinguishable from its congeners by the following combination of characters: chocolate brown color overlain with small irregular white spots, golden skin shadings close to rictus; anus slightly before midbody; pointed and serrated jaw teeth; uniserial teeth in jaws and vomer; vertebral formula 7/61/148-149. The species is compared to all its congeners with white spots.
A golden age for ectoparasitoids of Embiodea: Cretaceous Sclerogibbidae (Hymenoptera, Chrysidoidea) from Kachin (Myanmar), Charentes (France) and Choshi (Japan) ambers
GONDWANA RESEARCH
Authors: Perkovsky, Evgeny E.; Martynova, Kateryna, V; Mita, Toshiharu; Olmi, Massimo; Zheng, Yan; Mueller, Patrick; Zhang, Qi; Gantier, Flavie; Perrichot, Vincent
Abstract
Sclerogibbid wasps are obligate parasitoids of webspinners (Embiodea). Both groups have a particularly scarce geological record and arc known since the Cretaceous: them am only four species of webspinners known from Burmese amber, and only two sclerogibbids were described from Barremian Lebanese and Cenomanian Burmese ambers. Here we report transferred genus from Aptian Choshi (Japan) amber and new sclerogibbids from Cenomanian Burmese and Charentese (France) ambers. The taxa described from Burmese amber are: Burrnascterogibba apt era gen. el sp. nov., Cretoscterogibba gen. nov. (with C. antennalis sp. nov., C. contractocollis sp. nov., C. neli sp. nov. and C. rasnitsyni sp. nov.) and Edrossia vetusta gen. et sp. nov. The first European fossil sclerogibbid Gallosclerogibba alnensis gen. et sp. nov. is described from Charentese amber. The holotype of Chosia yamadai Fujiyama, from Choshi amber, is re-described; it appears to be the oldest Laurasian sclerogibbid. The significant abundance and variety of Burmese sclerogibbid wasps (60% of fossil species known worldwide), as proxy of their hosts, were probably caused by the protection granted to them by the silk webs and possibly by the limited predation from omithuromorph birds or crown-group ants. While all three extant sclerogibbid genera have apterous females, genera with winged females (Creto.sclerogibba and Edrossia) dominated in Burmese amber. Small silk galleries from hosts may have favored the preservation of wings in females of Cretaceous sclerogibbids. Most new species described in the present paper, in addition to C. yamadai, are characterized by a very slender neck and a very long frontal process concealing the antennal toruli. These characters disappeared in extant species. We suggest that this loss was caused by a change in the fauna of predators, penalizing species with long neck and rostrum. (C) 2020 International Association for Gondwana Research. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.