Florissantoraphidia, Makarkin, Vladimir N. & Archibald, S. Bruce, 2014

Makarkin, Vladimir N. & Archibald, S. Bruce, 2014, A revision of the late Eocene snakeflies (Raphidioptera) of the Florissant Formation, Colorado, with special reference to the wing venation of the Raphidiomorpha, Zootaxa 3784 (4), pp. 401-444 : 432

Genus Florissantoraphidia gen. nov.

Type species. Raphidia funerata Engel, 2003 .

Diagnosis. Moderate-sized raphidiids (forewing ca. 11 mm long); pterostigma long, rather pale, with incorporated branch of RA distinct; distal crossvein 3ra-rp located within pterostigma, far proximad its distal ending. In hind wing, 1r-m long, parallel to R; two doi [one in Archiraphidia ]; CuA pectinate, three-branched [onebranched in Archiraphidia , Megaraphidia ].

Species included. Two species from Florissant, Florissantoraphidia mortua ( Rohwer, 1909) and F. funerata .

Etymology. From Florissant, type locality of the type species, and Raphidia , a genus-group name.

Remarks. The three-branched pectinate CuA in the hind wing is the most distinctive feature of Florissantoraphidia gen. nov. Within the family, this condition occurs only in single species of the North America genus Agulla ; to our knowledge, most other species in this genus normally possess a two-branched CuA as do some species of the Palearctic genera Phaeostigma , Dichrostigma , Harraphidia , and Mongoloraphidia H. Aspöck & U. Aspöck, 1968c . CuA is one-branched in other extant Raphiididae.

Florissantoraphidia gen. nov. may be distinguished from Agulla by the following character states: the costal space is narrower; the pterostigma is longer; 3ra-rp is located within the pterostigma [usually just distad pterostigma (very rarely in distal part of pterostigma) in Agulla ]; the basal 1r-m in the hind wing is long, running nearly parallel to RA [short, crossvein-like, inclined to RA at some angle in Agulla ]. The only known fossil species of Agulla is A. mineralensis known from a single hind wing, whose characters agree well with Agulla . We consider it likely that ‘ Agulla ’ protomaculata from the Early Eocene Green River Formation does not belong to this genus, however (Archibald & Makarkin, ongoing research).

Some doubt remains as to the distinctiveness of the two species included here in the new genus, as differences present in their known fossils might possibly be intraspecific. We prefer to leave these separate, however, until future fossils may clarify this question.