STEWART VALLEY FOSSIL INSECTS

The pairs of images presented below illustrate typical fossil (left image) and recent (right image) specimens of some groups represented in material in the collection.




A bibionid fly (Diptera: Bibionidae)

 


A metallic wood borer (Coleoptera: Buprestidae)

 


A winged ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

 


Hindwing of a fulgoroid bug (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea)

 


A true bug (Hemiptera)

 


An ichneumon wasp (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae)

 


A sawfly (Hymenoptera: Symphyta)

 


A flower-loving fly (Diptera: Syrphidae)

 



A geometrid moth (Lepidoptera: Geometridae)

 


A crane fly (Diptera: Tipulidae)

 

 

REFERENCES

Kukalova-Peck, J. 1987. New Carboniferous Diplura, Monura, and Thysanura, the hexapod ground plan, and the role of thoracic side lobes in the origin of wings (Insecta). Canadian Journal of Zoology 65:2327-2345.

Savage, D.E. and D.E. Russell. 1983. Mammalian paleofaunas of the world. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts. 432 pp.

Schorn, H.E., H.I. Scudder, D.E. Savage, and J.R. Firby. 1989. General stratigraphy and paleontology of the Miocene continental sequence in Stewart Valley, Mineral County, Nevada, U.S.A. pp. 157-173 in G. Liu, R. Tsuchi and Q. Lin, editors, Proceedings of International Symposium on Pacific Neogene Continental and Marine Events, National Working Group of China for IGCP-246. Nanjing University Press, Nanjing, China.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project could not have been done without the strong interest and support of Dr. Harvey I. Scudder, Research Associate of the California Academy of Sciences, who firmly believes The Stewart Valley fossil insects to be one of the world's most important finds of fossil insects. The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Carson City District is to be thanked for supporting the efforts of research crews to make this find available to the scientific community. The text is extracted and modified from text prepared by Howard Schorn and Dr. Harvey Scudder for a 1986 report to the Bureau of Land Management on the Stewart Valley Site. Dr. Norman D. Penny and Julieta F. Parinas are responsible for the layout, text, image selection, and database development. Drs. Charles E. Griswold, David H. Kavanaugh, Wojciech J. Pulawski, and Harvey I. Scudder are responsible for text, image, and database review and editing. Gabriel Mascardo and Zinaida Beynon are to be thanked for helping put the images into electronic format. Andrew Brown is to be thanked for volunteer work on curation of the fossils themselves. Finally, Drs. Edward S. Ross and Harvey I. Scudder are gratefully acknowledged for providing the images.


Last Updated January 2009