Archiinocellia is an extinct genus of snakefly in the family Raphidiidae known from Eocene fossils found in western North America. The genus contains two species, the older Archiinocellia oligoneura and the younger Archiinocellia protomaculata. The type species is of Ypresian age and from the Horsefly Shales of British Columbia, while the younger species from the Lutetian Green River Formation in Colorado. Archiinocellia protomaculata was first described as Agulla protomaculata, and later moved to Archiinocellia.
Archiinocellia oligoneura is known from a single specimen collected by Canadian geologist and paleontologist Lawrence M. Lambe during fieldwork in central British Columbia. The fossil was collected on July 21, 1906, from fossil bearing rocks near the Horsefly mine in Horsefly, British Columbia.[1][2]
The Archiinocellia protomaculata fossils were recovered from the Green River Formations Parachute Member which outcrops in the Piceance Creek Basin and Uinta Basin of Garfield County, northwestern Colorado.[3]
The age of the Horsefly sites was considered Oligocene for many years and Archiinocellia is still listed as an Oligocene genus in many modern works.[4] However, the site has been re-dated to the Early Eocene and is part of the Okanagan Highlands fossil localities, which stretch from Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park in Smithers, B.C. south to Republic, Washington.[5]
The Parachute Member of the Green River Formation is younger than the Horsefly Beds, with a Middle Eocene age, placing it in the Lutetian stage.[3]
The A. oligoneura holotype specimen was first studied and described by the prolific paleoentomologist Anton Handlirsch (1910). The genus was named from archi referring to the primitive appearance of the wing characters and Inocellia, the type genus for Inocelliidae, the family the genus was placed in originally. The species name is a combination of oligo in reference to Oligocene, the age the location of the fossil was thought to be, and "neura".