Reflectance transformation imaging files of a selection of fossil arthropods (Carboniferous from Kaiping, China)

Numerous arthropods (e.g. branchiopods, insects) collected during the
first half of the 20th century by F.-F. Mathieu within the
Pennsylvanian–Cisuralian (Moscovian–Asselian) succession of the
Zhaogezhuang colliery (Hebei Province, China), which was romanised notably
as Chao Ko Chwang and Chaokochuang in the literature, have been recently
traced in the palaeontological collections of the Royal Belgian Institute
of Natural Sciences (Brussels). This historical material from one of the
classic localities of the Kaiping Coalfield includes a large amount of
Blattodea wings, mainly from the Tangshan Formation and to a lesser extent
from the Kaiping and Zhaogezhuang formations. The exceptional richness in
insects of a particular horizon developed within the Moscovian part of the
Tangshan Formation was already pointed out at the end of the 1920s by the
French palaeoentomologist P. Pruvost, who provided the first account on
the arthropods of Mathieu’s collection from the Kaiping Coalfield. This
singular Blattodea material was later studied by D. Laurentiaux in his
unpublished Ph.D. In order to promote the revision of Mathieu’s collection
by specialists, we provide here a detailed scientific background and
re-illustrate the arachnids (and formerly alleged ones: (Poliochera vel
Curculioides) [sic] pustulatus Laurentiaux-Vieira & Laurentiaux)),
branchiopods (Lioestheria? mathieui (Pruvost)), and insects from the
Zhaogezhuang colliery, notably using the Reflectance Transformation
Imaging methodology.