A new ‘primitive’ family of thrips from Early Cretaceous Lebanese amber (Insecta, Thysanoptera) P. Nel a, * , D. Azar b , A. Nel c a Institut National Agronomique-Paris-Grignon, and Muse ´um National d’Histoire Naturelle, CP 50, Entomologie, 45 Rue Buffon, Fe75005 Paris, France b Lebanese University, Faculty of Sciences II, Department of Biology, Fanar Matn, PO box 26110217, Lebanon c CNRS UMR 5202, Muse ´um National d’Histoire Naturelle, CP 50, Entomologie, 45 Rue Buffon, Fe75005 Paris, France Received 7 July 2006; accepted in revised form 5 February 2007 Available online 28 July 2007 Abstract A new family of thrips, Moundthripidae, is described on the basis of a new genus and species, Moundthrips beatificus, from Early Cretaceous Lebanese amber. This taxon has plesiomorphic prognathous mouthparts, a unique type of wing venation and the main apomorphies of the Thy- sanoptera of the legs and mouthpart structures, suggesting that they were acquired very early during the evolution of this order. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Thysanoptera; Moundthripidae fam., gen. and sp. nov.; Cretaceous; Lebanese amber 1. Introduction The Thysanoptera is an old group of Paraneoptera with a rather ancient fossil record, despite the probable taphonomic bias owing to the small size of these insects. All currently de- scribed Cretaceous Thysanoptera belong to the recent lineage of this order, characterized by several wing venation synapo- morphies that are absent in the few Triassic and Jurassic taxa known (zur Strassen, 1973; Grimaldi et al., 2004; Grimaldi and Engel, 2005). These pre-Cretaceous taxa are fossilised in la- custrine sediments, and their body structures are very poorly known or completely unknown (Zherikhin, 2002, p. 138; Grimaldi et al., 2004). Therefore, the present discovery of a thy- sanopteran in Early Cretaceous Lebanese amber with ‘plesio- morphic’ structures of the wing venation, typical of the pre-Cretaceous taxa, provides an important clue to the under- standing of the development of the apomorphic structures of the legs and mouthparts of Recent representatives of this order. 2. Systematic palaeontology Order: Thysanoptera Haliday, 1836 Family: Moundthripidae fam. nov. Type genus. Moundthrips gen. nov. Diagnosis. Fore wing venation with well-developed Rs, M, CuA, CuP and A; fringe absent, short setae along posterior margin; anterior branch of RS nearly perpendicular to basal stem; R oblique; M oblique and distally unforked; CuA ba- sally fused with stem R þ M (autapomorphy); hind wing with a long median longitudinal vein, with a posterior branch and one anterior and one apical branch; ovipositor very small, saw-like, and directed upward. Genus Moundthrips gen. nov. Derivation of name. After Dr. Laurence Mound, world specialist on Thysanoptera. Type species. Moundthrips beatificus sp. nov. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: pnel@mnhn.fr (P. Nel), azar@mnhn.fr (D. Azar), anel@ mnhn.fr (A. Nel). 0195-6671/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2007.02.003 Cretaceous Research 28 (2007) 1033e1038 www.elsevier.com/locate/CretRes