Palaeovespa
Palaeovespa is an extinct genus of wasp in the Vespidae subfamily Vespinae.[2] The genus currently contains eight species, five from the Priabonian stage Florissant Formation in Colorado, United States two from the middle Eocene Baltic amber deposits of Europe. and one species from the late Paleocene of France.[2]
The genus was first described by Dr. Theodore Cockerell in a 1906 paper published in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.[3] The genus name is a combination of the Greek palaios, meaning "old" and vespa from the genus Vespa, the type genus of the family Vespidae where Palaeovespa is placed.
Along with the genus description, the paper contained the description of the type species P. florissantia, P. scudderi and P. gillettei all from the Florissant Formation.[3] Cockerell described a fourth species, P. baltica in 1909 from a specimen in Baltic amber.[2] Five years later, in 1914, Cockerell described another species P. wilsoni from Florissant.[2] In 1923, P. relecta was named by Cockerell, bring the species count to six, with five described from Florissant. Palaeovespa gained another species, P. socialis, in 2005 when George Poinar Jr. described a second species found in Baltic amber, while the eighth, and geologically oldest species, P. menatensis, was published by Nel et al (2006).
Palaeovespa is most similar to the extant genus Vespa, with which it shares many similar features such as a broad rounded thorax with a sessile abdomen that is broad at the base.[3] The genus however possesses wing venation that is closer to the more primitive genus Polistes. Despite naming P. florissantia as the type species Cockerell noted that not all features of the genus were discernible in the P. forissantia holotype.[3]
At the time of description in 1906, the holotype for P. florissantia was the largest single hymenopteran specimen that Cockerell had seen from the Florissant Formation.[3] He noted that holotype specimen Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) number 2026 was similar in appearance, on first examination, to a large scoliid wasp but that the specimen was undoubtedly a vespid.[3] P. florissantia was apparently broadly black in color with the hind margins of the abdominal segments pallid in coloration, but displaying no distinct markings. The wings were possibly reddish in coloration. Though the wings are folded, the very long first discoidal, which is unique to members of Vespidae, is visible.[3] The specific epithet is a reference to the Florissant Formation, which produced the specimen.
P. scudderi, unlike P. florissantia, was described from two specimens. However only holotype specimen MCZ number 2027 was noted as a type specimen. The second specimen, MCZ number 7738, while used in the description, was not noted as a paratype.[3] The species has eyes that are deeply emarginate like modern Vespa species, but unlike the modern species the eye segment above the emargination is very close to the size of the segment below.[3] Also notable to P. scudderi are the strong vertical striations on the lateral prothorax lobes, a feature not seen in the other Palaeovespa species that Cockerell described in 1906.[3] The head and thorax were dark, most likely black, in life, and the middle leg was black down to the apical third of the femur, at which point it shifts to a lighter tone, probably yellow or red.[3] Cockerell named P. scudderi for Samuel H. Scudder who was the first North American paleoentomologist and collector of numerous Florissant Formation insects.
