First discovery of fossil Protomecoptera in the Tongchuan region, Shaanxi, China

The suborder Protomecoptera was erected by Tillyard in 1917 from Australian Late Triassic strata. However, Carpenter (1992) considered that Protomecoptera might belong to the suborder Eumecoptera. Recently two new fossil genera, Glyptochorista martynovae gen. et sp. nov. and Phyllochorista orientis gen. et sp. nov., have been discovered by the author for the first time in the Middle Triassic Tongchuan Formation of Shaanxi Province, China, and are assigned to the family Tomiochoristidae O. Martynova, 1958 of this suborder. Thus the family Tomiochoristidae is stratigraphically extended to the highest horizon, i.e. from the Early Permian to Middle Triassic, spanning more than 50 Ma. The discovery of the new genera and species in China fills in the gaps in the field of protomecopterid of China and so has certain reference value for the study of the evolution of this family (Tomiochoristidae) from the Late Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic. The fossils were collected from grayish green mudstone-shale in the upper part of the Lower Member of the Middle Triassic Tongchuan Formation in Tongchuan. The new genera and new species are a new member of the Tongchuan Entomassemblage of the Shaanxi Entomofauna (a fossil group of the Mid Triassic Shaanxi fauna or Shaanxi biota) and their age is equivalent to the Ladinian stage of Europe.