Two new species of the family Rhynchitidae (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) from Eocene Baltic amber, with key to species and assumed trophic relationships

Abstract

Two new fossil species of Baltocar Kuschel, 1992 and Pseudomesauletes Legalov, 2001 (Curculionoidea: Rhynchitidae) are described from Eocene Baltic amber. Baltocar sontagae sp. nov. is similar to B. groehni Riedel, 2012 but differs in the shorter rostrum, tarsomere 1 shorter than tarsomere 5 and 1.4× as long as tarsomere 2, longer elytra, and shorter body. Pseudomesauletes lobanovi sp. nov. is similar to P. culex (Scudder, 1893) and P. ibis (Wickham, 1912): the new species differs from P. culex in the larger eyes, longer pronotum, being 0.44× shorter than elytra, and slightly smaller body size; from P. ibis it differs in the smaller body size, rostrum shorter than elytra, and weakly convex pronotum. This is the first record of Pseudomesauletes from Baltic amber and the sixth species of Baltocar. Keys to species of the genus Baltocar and to the Eocene species of the genus Pseudomesauletes are given. Assumed trophic relationships of these fossil taxa are discussed (urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:260EBE6E-DA6C-4D6D-A1D2-2C258224622F).