Eocene and not Cretaceous origin of spider wasps: Fossil evidence from amber

This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the author(s) and published by Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Instytut Paleobiologii. The published article can be found at: http://www.app.pan.pl/article/item/app000732014.htmlSpider wasps had long been proposed to originate in the mid-Cretaceous based on the\ud Burmese amber fossil Bryopompilus interfector Engel and Grimaldi, 2006. We performed\ud a morphological examination of this fossil and determined it does not belong to\ud Pompilidae or any other described hymenopteran family. Instead, we place it in the new\ud family Bryopompilidae. The oldest verifiable member of the Pompilidae is from Baltic\ud amber, which suggests the family probably originated in the Eocene, not in the\ud mid-Cretaceous as previously proposed. The origin of spider wasps appears to be\ud correlated with an increase in spider familial diversity in the Cenozoic. We also we add\ud two genera to the extinct pompilid fauna: Tainopompilus gen. nov., and Paleogenia gen. nov.,\ud and describe three new species of fossil spider wasps: Anoplius planeta sp. nov., from\ud Dominican amber (Burdigalian to Langhian); Paleogenia wahisi sp. nov., from Baltic amber\ud (Lutetian to Priabonian); and Tainopompilus argentum sp. nov, from Dominican amber (Chattian to\ud Langhian)