The first Late Jurassic elcanid orthopteran from Poland and its palaeoecological implications
Monika Michalska and Błażej Błażejowski
The elcanid ?Panorpidium polonicum Michalska sp. nov. is described based on a single tegmen from the Tithonian (Upper Jurassic) Kcynia Formation at the Owadów-Brzezinki quarry, central Poland. This specimen represents the first record of the family Elcanidae, and the first Late Jurassic orthopteran fossil found in Poland. Venational characters allow tentative assignment to Panorpidium, extending the stratigraphic range of the genus into the Upper Jurassic and making ?Panorpidium polonicum Michalska sp. nov. the oldest known species of the genus. This find provides new evidence for the palaeobiogeographic distribution of elcanids and contributes to the sketchy background of the enigmatic superfamily Elcanoidea. It also highlights the importance of the Owadów-Brzezinki site for understanding Late Jurassic arthropod diversity.
Key words: Insecta, Orthoptera, Elcanidae, Upper Jurassic, Owadów-Brzezinki quarry.
Monika Michalska [m.michalska@twarda.pan.pl; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1505-5618] and Błażej Błażejowski [bblazej@twarda.pan.pl; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6320-9870], Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Twarda 51/55, 00-818 Warsaw, Poland; Museum of the Earth of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Aleja Na Skarpie 20/26-27, 00-488 Warsaw, Poland.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Full text (909.9 kB)