Osmylidae indet.

Taxonomy

Lance Lacewing

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda Latreille 1829
Class: Insecta Linnaeus 1758
Order: Neuroptera Linnaeus 1758
Family: Osmylidae Leach 1815
Genus: Indet.
Species: Indet.

Geological Time Scale

Eon: Phanerozoic
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Jurassic
Sub Period: None
Epoch: Middle
International Age: Callovian to Oxfordian

Stratigraphy

Jiulongshan Formation
Daohugou Bed

Provenance

Acquired by: Purchase/Trade

Dimensions

Length: 32 mm

Location

Daohugou (Village)
Ningcheng (County)
Inner Mongolia (Province)
China

• daohugou
• inner mongolia
• jurassic
• osmylidae
• tff-oilshale-ar2562

Comments

There are additional unidentified conchostraca (clam shrimps, arthropods) on the slab.

The age of the Daohugou strata has been notoriously difficult to determine, and a number of studies have produced conflicting results. Gao and Shubin, 2001 reported an Argon-argon dating age of 164 ±4 million years ago (Middle to Late Jurassic, Bathonian to Oxfordian); this opinion is now widely accepted.

Taxonomy according to Fossilworks.org.

Diagnosis for the family OSMYLIDAE Leach, 1815 according to Winterton et al., 2019 p. 13. “Adult head with dorsal tentorial arms weakly developed; ocelli usually present, medial ocellus sometimes reduced (e.g., Paryphosmylus) or all ocelli completely absent (e.g., Gumillinae); palpimaculae absent; antennae filiform; wings with basal subcostal veinlet simple in costal area, sometimes forked but never recurrent; single basal crossvein (sc-r) between Sc and R, rarely more than one (e.g., Porismus, Archaeosmylidia); Sc and RA fused apically and joining costal margin before wing apex in both wings; single branch of RP, subsequently pectinately branched (5 or more branches); FW radial branches frequently curved posteriorly in apical half of wing, sometimes sinuous; FW medial vein fork variably placed along wing, HW medial vein fork near wing base; FW CuP pectinately (rarely dichotomously) branched; cubital field relatively large in both wings; nygmata typically present; trichosors present in both wings (rarely reduced to apical margin); end twigging along wing margin present, sometimes extensive and multi-layered; jugal lobe present; female gonocoxite 9 (gx 9) (i.e., gonopophysis lateralis) elongate and with terminal stylus; female with a pair of sclerotised spermathecae; male genitalia with well-developed arched gonarcus with paired entoprocesses fused laterally; mediuncus curved; parameres present or absent, sometimes fused into single arched sclerite; larva (Fig. 1) with straight, highly elongate jaws; gular-like sclerite absent; seven Malphigian tubules, of which five arge incorporated into the cryptonephridium; eversible claws present on paired prolegs on last abdominal segment.”

Identified by Alex Khramov (Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia): “Osmylidae, but definitely not Ponomarenkius or any other Kempyninae. Which genus or subfamily I cannot tell you - too fragmentary preservation and, moreover, there are many undescribed osmylids in Daohugou, so probably your specimen is one of them.” 

References:

Gao K Q, Shubin N. (2001): Late Jurassic salamanders from Northern China. Nature, 410: 574–577.

Winterton, Shaun L., Martins, Caleb C., Makarkin, V., Camacho, Adrian A., & Wang, Yongjie (2019): Lance lacewings of the world (Neuroptera: Archeosmylidae, Osmylidae, Saucrosmylidae): review of living and fossil genera. Zootaxa 4581 (1): 001–099. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4581.1.1 .