Marmyan

Marmyan Temporal range:
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hemiptera
Suborder:	Sternorrhyncha
Family:	incertae sedis
Genus:	†Marmyan
Species:	†M. barbarae
Binomial name
†Marmyan barbarae Koteja, 2004

Marmyanis anextinctgenusofscale insect,containing a single species,Marmyan barbaraeand unplaced in any coccid family. The genus is solely known from theAlbian–CenomanianBurmese amberdeposits.

History and classification

Marmyanis known from theholotypespecimen, collection number BMNH In. 20160(1), which along several other insects of different orders, areinclusionsin a transparent chunk of Burmese amber. As of 2004, the type insect was part of the amber collections housed at theBritish Museum of Natural History,London, England.Theamberspecimen was recovered from deposits exposed in theHukawng ValleyofKachin State,Myanmar. Burmese amber has beenradiometrically datedusingU-Pbisotopes, yielding an age of approximately 99 million years, close to theAptian–Cenomanianboundary.

The holotype was first studied by paleoentomologist and coccid researcher Jan Koteja, of theAgricultural University of Kraków.Kotejas's 2004type descriptionof the genus and species was published in theJournal of Systematic Palaeontology.He coined thespecific epithetbarbaraeto honor the Polish paleoentomologist and hempiteran researcher Barbara Ogaza, who started fossil coccid research in Poland. The genus name,Marmyan,is an anagram created from the name "Myanmar", where the amber is found.

Marmyanis one of three Burmese amber coccid genera that Koteja described in the same paper, the other two beingBurmacoccusandAlbicoccusplaced into the monotypic families Burmacoccidae and Albicoccidae respectively.He placedMarmyaninto the neococcid group of scale insects based on a combination of characters that indicate a relationship to the primitive familiesPutoidae,Pseudococcidae,Eriococcidaebut not found in any one particular family.Aphylogeneticanalysis of coccid males from a number of families was performed by Hodgson and Hardy in 2013. The extinct generaAlbicoccus,Apticoccus,Grimaldiella,Kukaspis,Marmyan,Palaeosteingelia,Palaeotupo,Solicoccus,Turonicoccusand possiblyPennygullania,all with simple rows of eyes, were found to form a clade that includedBurmacoccus.The clade also includes the modern families Putoidae,SteingeliidaeandPityococcidaeplus the neococcoids clade as a group.A second phylogenetic review of coccids was performed by Vea and Grimaldi in 2015 and incorporated a number of new fossil taxa. In contrast to the work of Hodgson and Hardy, the 2015 analysis recoveredMarmyanas a neoccoid genus sister to the family Eriococcidae, as was suggested by Koteja.

Description

The single described adult male is approximately 870–900 μm (0.034–0.035 in) long, with hyaline wings, but incomplete. The head and part of the thorax were lost when a hole was bored through the amber for threading onto a string.Koteja assumed the head would have borne reduced eye structuring as other primitive neococcids. The antennae are composed of ten segments, with thepedicelbeing the similar in length to surrounding segments which are nodose in shape and get slowly smaller from base to tip. The antennae are covered in many setae, but thesensillaare not discernible. The fore-wings are about 720 μm (0.028 in) long, with discerniblemicrotrichia,but due to the folding of the wings the presence of an alar lobe was not confirmed. The hind-wings in other genera are modified into elongatedhalteres,but due to positioning in the amber, they are not detectable on the type specimen. The abdomen is broad and generally slightly oblong in outline, with two long setae on the developed apical lobes. There are apical setae are associated with probable glandular pouches and the body is associated with detached waxy filaments. The peniel sheath is divided into a basal rounded section and a narrow style, slightly downward curved, with pointed end.