A new species and the first description of the female of Fiaponeura Lu et al. (Neuroptera: Psychopsoidea) from Cretaceous Kachin amber

Lacewings (Insecta: Neuroptera) are a remarkable group of insects displaying astonishing diversity during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Neuroptera is an order of holometabolous insects, which, together with Megaloptera and Raphidioptera, comprise the superorder Neuropterida (Engel et al., 2018). The morphologically diverse larvae of Neuroptera are known for their specialized sucking mouthparts for fluid feeding, as well as for their distinct life histories, such as trap builders (antlions), freshwater parasites (spongillaflies), and termite predators (beaded lacewings) (Oswald & Machado, 2018). The adults are usually predators, with some exceptions, and exhibit greatly reticulated wings, with variable sizes, shapes and coloration patterns. The order comprises ca. 6,000 extant species in 15 families, and the fossil record impressively adds 15 and 1,078 extinct families and species, respectively (Winterton et al., 2018; Oswald, 2024). During the past decades, extinct lacewings with long proboscides have been discovered in fossil records and placed in the superfamily Psychopsoidea. Investigating the role of these insects in pollination and examining the comparative morphological structure of mouthparts is paramount to our understanding of lacewing diversity, evolution, and function (Lu et al., 2016).