TWO OVERLOOKED FAMILY-GROUP NAMES FOR FOSSIL TERMITES (ISOPTERA: MASTOTERMITIDAE)

摘要

During the final phases of completing a new, annotated world catalog of the termites (Isoptera) two family-group names for termites were discovered that had been overlooked during prior accounts of such names (Engel and Krishna, 2004a, 2004b). The subfamily Pliotermitinae was proposed by Sandor Pongracz (1917) for his new genus, Pliotermes, itself established for a fossil termite from the Early Miocene of Hungary. Subsequently, Emerson (1965) demonstrated that Pliotermes hungaricus Pongracz was conspecific with Mastotermes croaticus Rosen, also from the Miocene of southeastern Europe, and thereby relegated the former, along with its monotypic genus and subfamily, to synonymy.