The oldest records of Polyxenida (Myriapoda, Diplopoda): new discoveries from the Cretaceous ambers of Lebanon and France

摘要

Electroxenus jezzinensis n. gen., n. sp. and Libanoxenus hammanaensis n. gen., n. sp. are described from the Lower Cretaceous amber of Lebanon. These are the oldest known records of Penicillata because Phryssonotus burmiticus (Cockerell, 1917), from Burmese amber, is dated as being from upper Albian. They belong to the family Polyxenidae. This family contains the recent genus Polyxenus Latreille, 1803, which is known from Eocene Baltic amber. Electroxenus n. gen. and Libanoxenus n. gen. are very close to the recent genera of Polyxenidae. The first French fossil Penicillata, discovered in the Cretaceous amber of Haute-Provence, is also described and referred to the genus Phryssonotus Scudder, 1885 (sole genus of the family Synxenidae). The recent polyxenid families Polyxenidae and Synxenidae therefore already existed during the Cretaceous.