Burmitembia Cockerell

Engel, Michael S. & Grimaldi, David A., 2006, The Earliest Webspinners (Insecta: Embiodea), American Museum Novitates 3514 (1), pp. 1-16 : 9

Genus Burmitembia Cockerell

Burmitembia Cockerell, 1919: 194 . Type species: Burmitembia venosa Cockerell, 1919 , monobasic. Davis, 1939a: 369. Carpenter, 1992: 190.

DIAGNOSIS: As for the subfamily (vide supra, and Davis, 1939a). Ross and York (2000) provide a photograph of the holotype of B. venosa (their fig. 4).

Embiodea sp. indet.

MATERIAL: Fragments of a male alate (presumed to be a male owing to wing fragment, but sex is otherwise indeterminable). AMNH Bu-200, Myanmar ( Burma): Cretaceous, Kachin, Tanai Village (on Ledo Road 105 km NW Myitkyna). These fragments were briefly mentioned by Grimaldi et al. (2002).

COMMENTS: A small piece of Burmese amber containing fragments of an embiodean as evidenced by the distinctive probasitarsus. The foreleg is preserved from the profemur to the pretarsus. The profemur and protibia are typical in construction for most Embiodea ; the probasitarus is greatly enlarged, being slightly longer than the protibia and similar in length to the profemur and about 2.5 times wider than protarsomere II; protarsomere II is the shortest and about as long as wide, with protarsomere III arising from its surface, protarsomere III slender and elongate, about 1.75 times as long as protarsomere II; the pretarsal claws are short and simple. In addition, the apical portion of a forewing is preserved with the foreleg fragment. The evident venation is nearly identical to that of the apical portion of the forewing of B. venosa (e.g., MA is simple, well separated from MP; Rs and MA connected prior to termination of R by evanescent rs-ma crossvein: the only apparent differences are that the apical r-rs crossvein is shorted and more bowed in Bu- 200 and that the rs-ma crossvein is slightly more distal in position in Bu-200, but this latter difference might be the result of r-rs being shorter). Similarly, the foreleg structure is identical to that of B. venosa . It is possible that these are fragments of a male B. venosa but it must be noted that these are not diagnostic traits and do not permit authoritative identification except to confirm that the fragments are that of an embiodean. Nonetheless, the combination of these similarities is tantalizingly suggestive of B. venosa .