Fossil Unguicheylidae fam. nov., a new fossil family of prostigmatic mites (Acari: Prostigmata) from the Cretaceous Taimyr amber|古生物学数据集|化石螨类数据集

Dataset for the paper Unguicheylidae fam. nov., a new fossil family of prostigmatic mites (Acari: Prostigmata) from the Cretaceous Taimyr amber Alexander A. Khaustov, Dmitry D. Vorontsov, Evert E. Lindquist A new monotypic fossil family Unguicheylidae <strong>fam. nov.</strong> with type genus and species <em>Unguicheylus</em> <em>quadriocellatus</em> <strong>sp. nov. </strong>is described from the early-Cretaceous (Albian–lower Cenomanian) amber of northern Siberia (Taimyr amber, Baikura locality). The new family is provisionally placed in the superfamily Anystoidea and most similar to the family Pseudocheylidae, but differs mainly in having apomorphically adnate cheliceral bases (free, mobile bases in Pseudocheylidae), and the tarsi of all legs lacking annulated pretarsal stalks bearing reduced claws (present, apomorphic to Pseudocheylidae). The specimen was partially broken during the preparation. This dataset documents the specimen before and after the breaking, at high magnification. Amber piece were cut and polished following protocols of Sidorchuk (2011, 2013) and tools described by Sidorchuk and Vorontsov (2018). During the polishing away of the cracked layer of amber that obscured the ventral side of the mite, the block of amber broke in several pieces, leaving the major part of the mite in one piece and two of its legs and a palp in the two smaller pieces. After that, the preparation was stopped and the mite was imaged with highest available resolution using water and saturated fructose as immersion media. The mite was imaged using Zeiss AxioImager A2 and Nikon Eclipse E800 compound microscopes with 40x (water immersion) and 100x (oil immersion) objectives using Nomarski DIC. Stacks of images, comprising multiple focal planes, were obtained with an Olympus OM-D E-M10-II digital camera. Figures herein contain images assembled from multiple focal planes using Helicon Focus 7.6, using algorithm B with subsequent manual addition of significant details like thin setae from the individual focal planes. High-resolution images were taken with a Zeiss LSM-880 confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) equipped with an Airyscan super-resolution detector. A 488 nm laser was used for excitation, while detection range was set above 540 nm. For a scan, the amber piece was immersed in saturated fructose. <br>