Nyctiophylax ispokonvekov Melnitsky, Ivanov & Perkovsky, 2025

Nyctiophylax ispokonvekov Melnitsky, Ivanov & Perkovsky sp. n.

https://zoobank.org/ urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:

( Figs 1 – 4 View Figure 1 View Figure 2 View Figure 3 View Figure 4 , 6A View Figure 6 )

Type material: Holotype. Male. SIZK CC –58, Stare Selo, Rovno amber, late Eocene. Syninclusions: SIZK CC –58 – SIZK CC –63: 2 Hymenoptera (one Megaspilidae , Lagynodes sp. ), 9 Diptera Nematocera (2 Psychodidae , 6 Chironomidae ), 2 Acari.

Description. Body length 3.6 mm; forewing length 4.6 mm. Head, antennae, legs, thorax and wings dark brown. Palps and abdomen brown. Wings with long brown hairs.

Male genitalia. Ventral part of inferior appendages elongate with rounded and turned upwards apex. Dorsal part of inferior appendages makes clavate process directed upwards and covered with hairs. Segment X large, roof-shaped, rounded in dorsal view. Ventral membranous part of this segment well developed. Ventrolateral horn-shaped processes of segment X directed ventrocaudad and curved inwards, strong and long, longer than segment X. Preanal appendages (cerci) irregularly triangular with rounded apex. Aedeagus wide with two small ventral tubercles at the apex.

Comparison. We placed this new species in the genus Nyctiophylax because of absence of the fork 1 on fore wing. Nonetheless, some structures of male genitalia in this specimen are similar to those typical for Plectrocnemia , with bilobed inferior appendages having smaller dorsal part. This composition of peculiar and presumably ancestral shape of the inferior appendages with a set of characters widespread among Nyctiophylax is the most characteristic for the new species. The probable closest species in the genus Nyctiophylax to the new species is N. hamatus Ulmer, 1912 from Baltic amber. These two species differ from each other by the structure of the inferior appendages and by the shape of ventrolateral projections of segment X. Nyctiophylax hamatus has ventrolateral processes of the same length as segment X; these processes curved downwards, not inwards as in the new species.

Etymology. The specific name ispokonvekov is indeclinable and must not agree in gender with its generic name; it derives from Russian and means “since the beginning of time”.

Distribution. Priabonian Rovno amber.

Remark. Big size of the piece and syninclused Psychodidae indicate that amber trap was situated on the base of tree trunk ( Perkovsky et al. 2012).