Cratolocustopsis aquila, Schall & Lima & Heads & Pinheiro & Kotthoff & Husemann, 2025

Cratolocustopsis aquila sp. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:

Fig. 4 View FIGURE 4

Etymology: The species name derives from the Latin aquila , meaning “eagle”. It refers to the head shape of the specimen, which resembles the beak of a bird of prey. This appearance is the result of damage to the fossil and does represent the actual morphology of the species.

Locality and horizon: Type locality imprecise; from one of the several quarries in the region of Nova Olinda and Santana do Cariri municipalities, Ceará State, Brazil. Nova Olinda Member , Crato Formation, Santana Group. Early Cretaceous, Aptian .

Type material: Holotype, sex unknown, in the collection of Museu de Paleontologia Plácido Cidade Nuvens , Universidade Regional do Cariri, Santana do Cariri, Ceará, Brazil, coll. no. MPSC 9840 View Materials .

Diagnosis: Species recognized by MP strongly concave in distal fourth, almost parallel to anal wing margin. RP originates posterior to fork of M. RP bifurcates shortly after origin. Note: latter character may represent an individual aberration.

Description: Body, forewing and left metafemur as well as most of metatibia preserved.

Measurements: Body length 20.4 mm; abdomen ca. 10.3 mm. Head height 4.3 mm. Metafemur 12.1 mm long, 2.6 mm wide. Preserved part of metatibia 8.8 mm long. Forewing length 24.6 mm, 4.1 mm high.

Legs: Length/height-ratio of metafemur 4.65. Oblique lateral carinae present. Metatibia with 7 small dorsal spines on preserved part (probably ca. 80% of metatibia length preserved).

Forewing: Length/height-ratio 6. ScP length at least 85.9% of twl. Space between ScP and RA 11.4% of total wing height. Origin of RP at 50.5% of twl, posterior to M bifurcation. Space between RA and RP rather wide, 15% of wing height. RP with four branches. Shortly after its origin, RP is bifurcated; the upper branch is the “normal” RP, considered as RP1. Lower branch is fused to RA slightly anterior to branching of RP4. M with two branches. Fork of M at 45.9% of twl. Anterior and posterior branch of M parallel along most of their length, however MP describing a strong concave curve distally, almost making contact with MA2 as the latter touches wing margin. CuA + CuPaα with two branches. Anterior branch relatively parallel to MA2, reaching wing margin at 72.7% of twl. Posterior branch strongly concave similar to distal part of MP. Base of CuA + CuPaα (connection to CuPaβ) at 30% of twl. CuPaβ reaching anal wing margin at ca. 42.5% of twl (anal wing margin slightly damaged in the fossil, last millimeters of branch are lost). Cross vein pattern rather simple, consisting mainly of straight cross veins.

Remarks: Cratolocustopsis aquila sp. nov. is assigned to Cratolocustopsis based on the presence of two branches of CuA+ CuPaα and two branches of M. It differs from C. cretacea by its MP being strongly concave distally (MP is parallel to MA2 along its entire length in C. cretacea ( Fig. 6A View FIGURE 6 in Martins-Neto (2003) and Fig. 5 View FIGURE 5 from this study). Cratolocustopsis aquila further differs from the type species by the distal extent of the CuA + CuPaα branches: in the new species, both branches reach the wing margin, whereas in C. cretacea , only the anterior branch does so, with the posterior branch terminating in contact with CuPaβ. The new species also differs from C. contumax by being significantly larger; the forewing of C. contumax measures 18 mm in length, whereas that of C. aquila is 24.6 mm long.