Lyubarsky G.Yu.1, Perkovsky E.E.2 2020. First Rovno amber species of the genus Telmatophilus (Coleoptera: Clavicornia: Cryptophagidae) from Veselukha floodplain // Invertebrate Zoology. Vol.17. No.1: 25–35 [in English].
1 Zoological Museum of Moscow State University, Bol’shaya Nikitskaya str., 2, Moscow, 125009 Russia. E-mail: lgeorgy@rambler.ru
2 Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Bogdan Khmelnitsky Str., Kiev, 01601 Ukraine. E-mail: perkovsk@gmail.com
doi: 10.15298/invertzool.17.1.03
ABSTRACT. Telmatophilus sidorchukae Lyubarsky et Perkovsky sp.n. is described from Priabonian Rovno amber, the first Eocene species of the genus. The amber was collected from the Veselukha floodplain in the north-west Rovno region. The new species is similar to the extant Palearctic Telmatophilus typhae, which is an obligate herbivore of Typha flowers. The new species differs from all recent congeners by a combination of: comparatively long antenna with the 3rd, 4th and 5th antennomeres more than twice as long as wide, 10th antennomere subquadrate, 11th long-oval; distance between the middle coxae half the diameter of the middle coxae; the distance between the metacoxae about five times greater than between the procoxae and approximately equal to the diameter of the posterior coxae. The origin of the genus is linked to the expansion of the helophyte plants on which Telmatophilus species feed, which was apparently facilitated by the appearance of macrophyte lakes in Northern Eurasia after climatic cooling beginning in the second half of the Eocene. Late Priabonian “Telmatophilus” britannicus Kirejtshuk et Kurochkin, 2019 from the Bembridge Marls of the UK is transferred to Cryptophilinae (Erotylidae) as Cryptophilus britannicus (Kirejtshuk et Kurochkin, 2019) comb.n.
KEY WORDS: Cryptophagidae, Telmatophilus, late Eocene, Rovno amber.