New Family of Wasps Discovered in Amber

Researchers have determined that two unusual wasps in amber found in New Jersey, USA represent a new family of wasps, according to a press release from Pensoft Publishers.

The new family has been named Plumalexiidae, and comprises one new species, Plumalexius rasnitsyni. The only known specimens are two small males found in Late Cretaceous amber, dating from over 90 million years ago, which was apparently formed in a forested swampy environment.

Plumalexius rasnitsyni (Denis Brothers)

A detailed analysis during which they were compared with specimens of a variety of wasp groups, has shown that they are apparently most closely related to the family Plumariidae, now found only in the arid areas of South America and southern Africa and not known from any fossils. Although they share a few features with the Plumariidae, they also look very different, and so are considered best placed in a different family. The dissimilar habitats involved also indicate that their lifestyles and habits must have been different.

This finding raises many questions about the origins of the larger group of stinging wasps to which the new family belongs (the superfamily Chrysidoidea), the reasons for the apparently disjunct distributions of the grouping (Plumalexiidae in North America and Plumariidae in South America and southern Africa), and the biology of the new family (and even that of the Plumariidae, males and females of which have never been associated directly, and whose behaviour has not been observed in the field). These questions can only be answered satisfactorily once additional specimens, preferably from other localities, have been found.

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