The extant genus Eutheia (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae) discovered in Upper Cretaceous Taimyr amber

The Eutheiini includes over 90 extant species classified in seven genera and distributed predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere. So far only one extinct genus and species unambiguously placed in this tribe has been known, Archeutheia, from Albian of Spain. We report the discovery of Eutheia, a member of the largest extant genus of Eutheiini, in Santonian of northern Siberia. Extant species of Eutheia are primarily defined on the basis of male genital characters, and the specimen discovered in Taimyr amber is a female; consequently it is described as Eutheia sp. The new finding remarkably extends the known range of Eutheiini during Cretaceous over the area of about 6 thousand kilometers, from the Iberian Plate to northern Siberia. A long morphological stasis in Eutheia suggests that this genus was associated with stable mesic microhabitats of the upper soil layers or rotten wood for at least 83 my. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.