A Panorpoid (Insecta: Mecoptera) from the Lower Eocene of Patagonia, Argentina

2009 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. 994-997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián F. Petrulevičius

The order Mecoptera is represented on all continents, albeit with an uneven distribution. Mecoptera includes about 34 families (Labandeira, 1994, p. 34), only four of them, until now, represented in South America: Permochoristidae Tillyard, 1917 (†) (Pinto, 1972); Bittacidae Handlirsch, 1906 [and stem-group “Neorthophlebinae” (†)] (Petrulevičius, 2001a, 2003, 2007); Nannochoristidae Tillyard, 1917; and Eomeropidae Cockerell, 1909. The two latter families have a present relict distribution in southern South America but without fossil record, obviously an artifact due to few studies of fossil insects in the subcontinent. The diversity of recent Bittacidae is high in South America with respect to other continents. Thirty-five percent of recent genera of Bittacidae come from South America, and 80% of these genera are endemic (extracted from Penny, 1997). Bittacidae is well represented in the fossil record, with species from the Jurassic of Patagonia (Petrulevičius, 2007), Lower Cretaceous of Brazil (Petrulevičius and Martins-Neto, 2001), to the late Paleocene of Argentina (Petrulevičius, 1998, 1999, 2001b, 2003). This contribution reports a specimen belonging to the Panorpoidea, a group with no recent species in South America and very few species in the entire Southern Hemisphere.

Author(s):  
Thomas T. Veblen

Although most of the continent of South America is characterized by tropical vegetation, south of the tropic of Capricorn there is a full range of temperate-latitude vegetation types including Mediterranean-type sclerophyll shrublands, grasslands, steppe, xeric woodlands, deciduous forests, and temperate rain forests. Southward along the west coast of South America the vast Atacama desert gives way to the Mediterranean-type shrublands and woodlands of central Chile, and then to increasingly wet forests all the way to Tierra del Fuego at 55°S. To the east of the Andes, these forests are bordered by the vast Patagonian steppe of bunch grasses and short shrubs. The focus of this chapter is on the region of temperate forests occurring along the western side of the southernmost part of South America, south of 33°S. The forests of the southern Andean region, including the coastal mountains as well as the Andes, are presently surrounded by physiognomically and taxonomically distinct vegetation types and have long been isolated from other forest regions. Although small in comparison with the extent of temperate forests of the Northern Hemisphere, this region is one of the largest areas of temperate forest in the Southern Hemisphere and is rich in endemic species. For readers familiar with temperate forests of the Northern Hemisphere, it is difficult to place the temper temperate forests of southern South America into a comparable ecological framework owing both to important differences in the histories of the biotas and to contrasts between the broad climatic patterns of the two hemispheres. There is no forest biome in the Southern Hemisphere that is comparable to the boreal forests of the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The boreal forests of the latter are dominated by evergreen conifers of needle-leaved trees, mostly in the Pinaceae family, and occur in an extremely continental climate. In contrast, at high latitudes in southern South America, forests are dominated mostly by broadleaved trees such as the southern beech genus (Nothofagus). Evergreen conifers with needle or scaleleaves (from families other than the Pinaceae) are a relatively minor component of these forests.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  

Abstract A. areolatum is a basidiomycete that causes a white rot of a broad range of conifers. Its invasiveness arises from a symbiotic association with woodwasps of the genus Sirex. The species Sirexnoctilio is listed as "highly invasive" on the ISSG/IUCN website (ISSG, 2008) and is a Regulated Pest for the USA (APHIS, 2009a). The wasp and the fungus are native to Europe, North Africa and western Asia where their damage is considered secondary (Spradbery and Kirk, 1978). Introduced to areas of the Southern Hemisphere where exotic pine species are grown in plantations, these organisms have caused major losses. The insect invaded New Zealand by at least 1900, but did not cause serious concern until the 1940s (Talbot, 1977). It later spread to Tasmania and the southern parts of Australia and the wasp/fungus association was introduced into southern South America, beginning in Uruguay in 1980 (Ciesla, 2003). Invasion of South Africa occurred in 1994 (Tribe, 1995). Woodwasps are repeatedly detected in material imported to the USA, but were successfully excluded until 2004 (Wilson et al., 2009). The wasp and fungus were later found in nearby Canada (Ontario), although apparently due to a separate introduction (Bergeron et al., 2008; Wilson et al., 2009). Recent surveys found the wasp in four states of the USA (Evans-Goldner and Bunce, 2009) and 25 counties of Ontario in Canada (Shields, 2009). Schiff (2008) summarizes differences in complexity of the ecological situations in the Southern Hemisphere countries and North America that could affect spread and impact of the fungus and wasp.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-118
Author(s):  
PENELOPE CLAISSE ◽  
PATRICK BRISAC ◽  
ANDRÉ NEL

Nemopteridae are a small family of myrmeleontoid lacewings characterized by elongated ribbon- or thread-like hindwings. Extant Nemopteridae comprise two subfamilies, viz. Crocinae (thread-wings) and Nemopterinae (spoon- and ribbon-wings). They are distributed in all zoogeographical regions except the Nearctic region in the extant fauna. However, the major species diversity of Nemopteridae is confined to the southern part of Africa. The fossil record of the family is scarce, with five Lower Cretaceous fossils, one from the lowermost Cenomanian, two fossils from the Upper Eocene, and two from the Oligocene (Lu et al., 2019; Nel & Jarzembowski, 2019). Here we describe a new, nearly complete fossil from the Oligocene of Lubéron in France. It was found in the Konservat Lagerstätte of Céreste, in finely laminated lacustrine limestones. It is the only specimen of this family found in this outcrop, among more than 30000 fossil insects. Neuroptera are extremely rare in this outcrop; only one adult Ascalaphidae (Ascaloptynx oligocenicus Nel, 1991) and two Mantispidae (Prosagittalata oligocenica Nel, 1988 and an undescribed specimen) have been discovered there (Nel, 1988, 1991).


1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 127 ◽  
Author(s):  
O Seberg

Ever since J. D. Hooker's famous 'Introductory Essay' to Flora NOVE-Zelandise, a classical problem in biogeography has been to give a casual explanation of southern hemisphere distribution patterns. An attempt is made to see whether the cladograms for the circum-Pacific areas (South America, New Zealand, Tasmania and Australia) are congruent. The area cladograms are derived from Nothofagus (Fagacae), Embothriinae (Protaceae), Oreobolus (Cyperaceae), Cyttaria (Helotiales) and Eriococcidae (Homoptera). The resulting general area cladogram showing southern South America as the sister-area to New Zealand, south-eastern Australia and Tasmania, and Tasmania plus south-eastern Australia as sister-areas to New Zealand are compared with different geological hypotheses for the area. The biological area cladogram is shown to be congruent with widely different geological hypotheses.


1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary A. Askin ◽  
Alicia M. Baldoni

Proteaceous plants were an important component of the high-latitude Late Cretaceous–Paleogene podocarpaceous conifer and Nothofagus forest vegetation growing in high-rainfall temperate conditions. In the southern South America–Antarctic Peninsula region the fossil record of the Proteaceae comprises pollen, leaves, fruits and wood with affinities to the extant subfamilies Grevilleoideae, Proteoideae, and possibly Carnarvonioideae and Persoonioideae. The oldest reported occurrences of Proteaceae in this region are in the middle–late Santonian of the Antarctic Peninsula and include pollen of Proteacidites subscabratus Couper, with the addition in the Campanian of other species of Proteacidites and Propylipollis, Cranwellipollis spp. and Peninsulapollis spp. Diversity of proteaceous pollen increased through the Campanian and Maastrichtian, reflecting the spread of Proteaceae along the Antarctic Peninsula and into South America. Both endemic species and species derived from the Australian region are represented. Compared to coeval Australian assemblages, however, proteaceous diversity remained relatively low. Interestingly, Beauprea-type species (Beaupreaidites spp., Peninsulapollis spp.) are common and varied in the Antarctic Peninsula from Campanian into the Eocene, yet the South American pollen record does not include these forms, except for rare Peninsulapollis gillii. Possibly drier conditions may have discouraged northward migration of this group. South American fossil proteaceous taxa are primarily related to Grevilleoideae, a trend that continues into the modern flora on that continent.


2010 ◽  
Vol 158 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 236-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Palazzesi ◽  
Viviana Barreda ◽  
María Cristina Tellería

Bothalia ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 14 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 325-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Raven

As modern groups of angiosperms have appeared over a period of more than 80 million years, the relative position of the southern continents has changed. For the First 20 m.y. of this period, opportunities for migration were good between Africa and Europe, and this constituted the main pathway for migration between the northern and southern hemispheres. South America progressively moved away from Africa and towards North America over the past 90 m.y. Southern South America and Australasia shared a rich, warm temperate rainforest flora until about 40 m.y. ago. The development of modern climates during the past 10 m.y. has set up modern patterns of vegetation.


1996 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 867 ◽  
Author(s):  
RS Hill ◽  
SS Whang

Vegetative twigs from Oligocene sediments in north-western Tasmania are assigned to a new fossil species of Fitzroya, F. tasmanensis. These twigs differ from extant F. cupressoides in leaf shape and stomatal orientation and morphology. This is the first fossil record of Fitzroya from outside the current range of the genus (South America). Previous fossil records of Fitzroya from South America are almost certainly erroneous. These fossils occur in sediments with leaves and cupules of Nothofagus subgenus Nothofagus, which is also restricted to South America today. This suggests that some current plant associations in southern South America provide good analogues for vegetation in Oligocene Tasmania.


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