Prosthoblissus Boderau, Nel & Engel, 2025, n. gen.
Creators: name: Boderau, Mathieu
name: Nel, André
name: Engel, Michael S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Blissidae
Prosthoblissus

description: Prosthoblissus n. gen.
(Fig. 1)
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 9C0BAAFD-35EC-4FFD-B64B-E07283970A87
TYPE SPECIES. — Prosthoblissus primigenius n. sp.
ETYMOLOGY. — The new generic name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ΠΡΌσΘΕΝ (prósthen, meaning, “before” or “earlier”) and Blissus Burmeister, 1835 (itself from Ancient Greek βλῐ́σσω / blíssō, meaning, “to steal honey from the hive”), type genus of Blissidae. The gender of the name is masculine.
DIAGNOSIS. — The new genus can be distinguished from all extant and extinct Blissidae by the following combination of characters (refer also to Discussion, infra): ocelli absent; rostrum exceptionally short, extending merely to procoxae; meso- and metasterna not grooved; procoxal cavities open; femora incrassate, particularly profemur; all femora mutic; protibia bispinose, apically opposite spur; metatarsomere II with a pair of spines; macropterous, oblique apical margin of corium slightly convex; apical margin of abdominal tergum III spiculate.
DESCRIPTION
Body
Relatively slender and elongate, dorsoventrally compressed (as preserved); integument non-pruinose and generally dark matt as preserved except pronotum and mesonotum shiny (other areas may have been shining in life but are altered taphonomically – darkened, partially cleared in some places, and quite fragmented; likewise integument could have had pruinose areas in life with the powdery granulations obliterated by the resin but, where evident, the complete absence of minute spicules on the integument suggests that these areas were truly not pruinose).
Head
Not declivitous, projecting forward, slightly longer than maximum breadth, with short, broad collar posterior to compound eyes; compound eyes hemispherical, protruding; ocelli absent; tylus longer than juga, extending to nearly 0.75 × length of antennomere I; genal tusks absent; buccula narrow, short, not extending beyond jugum, rounded and not dilated apically; labium short, extending to anterior of prosternum.
Pronotum
About as long as wide (slightly distorted as preserved, slightly longer than wide as preserved but medial compression of pronotum means a precise measurement of width as in life impossible to determine; likely as long as wide in life); integument largely and smooth, shining, not microspiculate, with faint transverse striae posteriorly. Mesoscutellum longer than wide, apex acutely rounded; meso- and metasterna not grooved.
Hemelytron
Macropterous, membrane well-developed (extended and broken at edge of amber but sufficiently broad and extensive at that point of cutoff to indicate that its extension would likely have covered most of abdominal segments and at least base of segment IV but almost certainly not surpassing abdominal apex), hyaline and clear (as preserved), membrane without cells; corium weakly punctate, apex rounded (rather than tapering to point on anterior wing margin), oblique apical-posterior margin slightly convex; clavus about 0.5× length of corium, narrow.
Procoxal cavities
Open posteriorly, separated mesally by simple prosternal projection; femora incrassate, mutic (including profemur; one profemur damaged and broken transversely at about midlength, with ventral portion of break artificially pulled open, not to be confused with profemoral armature: Fig. 1C); protibia bispinose apically, with thin, longitudinal brush of setae on apical quarter; tibiae not flattened or armed along outer edges; metatarsomere II with a pair of spines.
Abdomen
Elongate, slender (apical segments artificially appearing widened owing to splitting of integument and splaying of sclerites); apical margin of tergum III spiculate; abdominal spiracles II and III dorsal, spiracles IV-VI likely dorsal as well (refer to Discussion, infra); sterna unarmed.
description: Published as part of Boderau, Mathieu, Nel, André & Engel, Michael S., 2025, The earliest chinch bug (Hemiptera, Blissidae): A new genus from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber, pp. 133-138 in Zoosystema 47 (9) on pages 134-136, DOI: 10.5252/zoosystema2025v47a9, http://zenodo.org/record/15098226