Evidence of Scenedesmaceae (Chlorophyta)from 100 million-year-old amber

摘要

Mid-Cretaceous ambers from Aix Island and Cadeuil (Charente-Maritime,southwestern France) have preserved a rich microorganism assemblage of cyano-bacteria, testate amoebae, and algae. The assemblage contains the first fossilrecord of the modern green algae genus Enallax Pascher, 1943 (Chlorococcales,Scenedesmaceae) and a new species, Enallax napoleoni n. sp., is described. Thisdiscovery pushes back the origin of the genus Enallax to the Cretaceous. Enallaxnapoleoni n. sp. probably grew in freshwater ponds of the mid-Cretaceous am-ber forests of southwestern France under a warm climate, associated with thecyanobacterium Palaeocolteronema cenomanensis Breton & Tostain, 2005.