The first British Cretaceous eomeropid scorpionfly (Mecoptera: Eomeropidae)

Abstract

Eomeropidae is a relict family of Mecoptera with the sole living species, Notiothauma reedi McLachlan, 1877, inhabiting western parts of southern Chilean Valdivian forests. The family was more widely distributed in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, being known from 13 fossil species ranging in age from Early Jurassic to Oligocene (Soszyńska-Maj et al., 2016; Archibald & Rasnitsyn, 2018; Zhao et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2022). The oldest fossil eomeropid, Jurachorista bashkuevi Soszyńska-Maj, Krzemiński, Kopeć & Coram, 2016, was described from the Lower Jurassic Charmouth Mudstone Formation of Dorset and so far is the only find of the family in Britain and in Europe. Here we report the second one, from the Lower Cretaceous (lower Barremian) upper Weald Clay Formation of Smokejacks brickworks, Surrey. The new species is most closely allied to Jurathauma Zhang, Shih, Petrulevičius & Ren, 2011 and Typhothauma Ren & Shih, 2005 from the Middle Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of China respectively. However, the incomplete preservation hampers its generic identification, although the type locality is an active site (Jarzembowski, 2021) and additional material may be recovered in future.