Plectrocnemia stremglav Melnitsky, Ivanov & Perkovsky, 2025

Plectrocnemia stremglav Melnitsky, Ivanov & Perkovsky sp. n.

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

( Figs 5 View Figure 5 , 6B View Figure 6 )

Type material: Holotype. Male. SIZK UA –28504, Rovno amber, late Eocene. Syninclusion: Tipuloidea.

Description. Body length 5.7 mm; forewing length 6.8 mm. Head, antennae legs, abdomen and brown thorax, wings light brown. Head with light hairs.

Male genitalia. Only ventral aspect of male genitalia is clearly visible. Inferior appendages short, trapezoid with a suture along distal margin delimiting an apical stripe. Aedeagus sclerotized, with apical oval sclerite provided with two pointed terminal lobes.

Comparison. The new species has some similarity with Plectrocnemia scapulosa Mey, 1988 from Bitterfeld amber and differs from it the shape of the inferior appendages and apex of aedeagus: in P. scapulosa the inferior appendages looks more elongated in the ventral view, sharply tapering towards of apex, aedeagus gradually tapers towards the apex without subapical expansion.

Etymology. The specific name stremglav is indeclinable and must not agree in gender with its generic name; it derives from Russian and means “headlong, reckless”.

Distribution. Priabonian Rovno amber.

Discussion

The second European trichopteran fauna studied in details after Baltic amber fauna was Bitterfeld amber fauna. The faunistic survey of the Bitterfeld yet not complete, although the preliminary results evidence the similarity of all European Trichoptera amber deposits ( Wichard 2013a). The new species described here, P. stremglav , has related species in Baltic ( P. spinosa , with similar apical structures of aedeagus) and Bitterfeld ( P. scapulosa ) ambers, with closer similarity to the latter. The taxonomic discussion around the species described by Ulmer (1912) is difficult because a part of his material is lost, and his descriptions are based on syntypes to be revised and re-classified. For example, P. spinosa was described on 3 specimens, illustrated by 5 illustrations of 2 specimens, and these illustrations are markedly different in shape of inferior and preanal appendages. With new species genus Plectrocnemia represented in Rovno amber by nine species with seven endemic to Rovno amber, so now the number of endemic species already higher than in Bitterfeld amber.

Reasons for relative rarity of Nyctiophylax in the non-Baltic fossil resins require additional investigations. This genus is abundantly represented by Nyctiophylax varians Ulmer, 1912 in the Baltic amber making 30% of all specimens of the genus determined to the species level in the monograph of Ulmer (1912), while the same species occur in much lesser numbers, up to 5 specimens, also in the Rovno amber. Nevertheless, this species makes up to 55% of all Nyctiophylax specimens found in the Rovno amber. The three genera ( Plectrocnemia , Holocentropus , Nyctiophylax ) comprise a half of all species in the Rovno amber. The genus is still not reported from Bitterfeld amber ( Wichard 2013a).

The trichopteran fauna of Rovno amber turned to be better studied than the Bitterfeld fauna. There could be other species in Bitterfeld amber related to the Rovno ones. Until now, only endemic Bitterfeld species with one exception ( Wichard 2013b) were reported, although numerous Baltic amber species found in Bitterfeld amber ( Wichard 2013a) left unrevised. Unfortunately, only the first part of Wichard Eocene revision with new data on Bitterfeld fauna with the first species reported to Baltic and Bitterfeld amber, i. e., Electroadicella bitterfeldi Wichard, 2013 was published ( Wichard 2013b), and dominant Eocene annulipalpian Trichoptera were not included in it. We suppose that at least dominant Eocene species abundant in both Baltic and Rovno amber occurred in Bitterfeld amber as well. Since Bitterfeld amber probably originated on Russoscandia, its place of origin was at least partly in more western and southern regions than Baltic amber ( Simutnik et al. 2025 and references therein). Further investigations might clarify the relationships of the European amber faunas.

Acknowledgments

Authors thanks Alexandr P. Rasnitsyn for Megaspilidae determination.

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