Fossil Punkochyzeria gen. nov. (Acari: Chyzeriidae) from Cretaceous amber

Source image stacks of specimens, dataset for the paperPunk’s not dead? Punkochyzeria gen. nov. (Acari: Chyzeriidae) from Cretaceous amber from MyanmarVasiliy B. Kolesnikov, Ilya S. Turbanov, Dmitry D. VorontsovWe report the discovery of remarkable fossil mites, Punkochyzeria gen. nov., in mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber from Myanmar. These postlarval stages of mites possess unusually long tufts of dorsal opisthosomal setae. The mites were initially identified as Parachyzeria Hirst, 1926, but detailed morphological analysis revealed several key characters, including the absence of a paradont or basidonts on the palptibia, suggesting a new genus. We describe three new species, Punkochyzeria minaevi sp. nov., Punkochyzeria makolae sp. nov. and Punkochyzeria khoyi sp. nov., which are distinguished by the form of the dorsal opisthosomal setae, the odontus/palptarsus ratio and the number of setae in the palptibial ctenidium. We also describe four specimens of Punkochyzeria gen. nov., which are difficult to attribute to a species due to their poor state of preservation. The possible functions of the long dorsal setae are discussed. Notably, P. makolae sp. nov. and P. khoyi sp. nov. carry other mites as syninclusions, suggesting a phoretic relationship. This discovery extends the known diversity of Chyzeriidae mites into the Cretaceous and provides new insights into their evolutionary history and ecological interactions.Images in JPEG or TIFF format, zipped per specimen.Scalebars included as separate files, insert pixel to pixel to the photo. FastStone image viewer (freeware) is recommended for viewing the stacks.Compound microscopes Nikon E-800 with dry (10x, 20x), water (40x and 60x) and oil (100x) immersion optics and Zeiss AxioImager A2 with dry (40x, 63x) and oil immersion optics (100x) were used, with brightfield, polarized, differential interference contrast and incident illumination. Stacks of images, comprising multiple focal planes, were obtained with Olympus OM-D E-M10-II digital camera. Images were treated for color, digital noise and sharpness with Adobe Lightroom.Fluorescence imaging was performed using a Zeiss LSM-880 confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) equipped with an Airyscan super-resolution detector.Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was performed using a Tescan Vega II SEM.