First argiolestid damselfly (Odonata: Zygoptera) from the late Palaeocene of Northwest Argentina

PETRULEVICIUS J. F.

Palaeoentomology

Magnolia Press

Lugar: Auckland; Año: 2020 vol. 003 p. 541 - 595

2624-2826

Megapodagrionids in the wide sense are a polyphyleticgroup of damselflies (Huang et al., 2018). In recent studiesthere is a tendency to restrict the Megapodagrionidae onlyto few genera, and to over rank some subfamilies such asPhilosininae and Argiolestinae to family level (Kalkman& Theischinger, 2013; Dijkstra et al., 2014). These effortsare based on nymphal (Kalkman et al., 2010) and wingcharacters (Kalkman & Theischinger, 2013).Megapodagrionids (sensu lato) are common in the fossilrecord mainly represented by isolated wings. This rendersdifficult their study because there is not yet a well solvedclassification and after the study of Bechly (2007) thereare few discovered characters on wing venation, many ofwhich are convergences. The group was in the fossil recordof South America absent up to now, but it is representedin the Cenozoic of North America (Cockerell, 1907, 1921;Scudder, 1890) and Europe (Azar & Nel, 2008; Nel et al.,1997; Petrulevičius et al., 2008), and the Cretaceous of Asia(Huang et al., 2018).