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Full body impressions and resting traces of Hexapoda can be of extreme importance because they bring crucial information on behavior and locomotion of the trace makers, and help to better define trophic relationships with other organisms (predators or preys). However, these ichnofossils are much rarer than trackways, especially for winged insects. Here we describe a new full-body impression of a winged insect from the Middle Permian of Gonfaron (Var, France) whose preservation is exceptional. The elongate body with short prothorax and legs and long wings overlapping the body might suggests a plant mimicry as for some extant stick insects. These innovations are probably in relation with an increasing predation pressure by terrestrial vertebrates, whose trackways are abundant in the same layers. This discovery would possibly support the recent age estimates for the appearance of phasmatodean-like stick insects, nearly 30 million years older than the previous putative records. The new exquisite specimen is fossilized on a slab with weak ripple-marks, suggesting the action of microbial mats favoring the preservation of its delicate structures. Further prospections in sites with this type of preservation could enrich our understanding of early evolutionary history of insects., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

The earliest Eocene Eochauliops longicornisgen. et sp. n., first fossil Malcidae, is described from the amber of Oise (France). Together with the previous discovery of a species of Blissidae in the same amber, it suggests that the Lygaeoidea were already rather diverse during the Palaeocene, even if the Mesozoic record of this superfamily remains uncertain and scarce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eochauliops longicornisgen. et sp. n., first fossil Malcidae, is described from the lowermost Eocene amber of Oise (France). Together with the previous discovery of a Blissidae in the same amber, it suggests that the Lygaeoidea were already rather diverse during the Palaeocene, even if the Mesozoic record of this superfamily remains uncertain and scarce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Guadalupian was a key epoch for the evolution of tetrapod faunas. It includes the earliest unambiguous occurrences of therapsids and stereospondyls (groups that later became dominant in terrestrial and freshwater environments, respectively) and the late Capitanian mass extinction event. The low-latitude faunas from this time interval, where sufficiently dated, comprise rare tetrapod body fossils whereas the most complete records are provided by ichnoassociations, especially coming from the Provence basins of France. In this paper, we revise the tetrapod ichnoassociation from the Pélitique Formation of the Le Luc Basin of Provence, identifying the following tetrapod ichnotaxa: Batrachichnus salamandroides (temnospondyls/lepospondyls), Capitosauroides talus comb. nov. (therocephalian therapsids), Dicynodontipus isp. (cynodont therapsids), Varanopus isp. (bolosaurian parareptiles), Hyloidichnus bifurcatus (captorhinomorph eureptiles) and Rhynchosauroides isp. (neodiapsid eureptiles). According to our revised ichnotaxonomy and stratigraphic correlations, we date the Pélitique Formation as late Capitanian and assign its tetrapod ichnoassociation to the newly defined Association V (Dicynodontipus sub-biochron of the Erpetopus biochron). The Pélitique Formation ichnoassociation shows a typical composition for a post-dinocephalian extinction ichnofauna, as shown by preliminary multivariate statistics on Guadalupian–Lopingian tetrapod ichnoassociations. It is similar to the contemporaneous skeletal faunas described from the mid- to high-latitude sites of Russia and South Africa and is arguably the earliest evidence of post-dinocephalian extinction recovery at low-latitudes. Our results confirm the global and abrupt impact of the late Capitanian terrestrial mass extinction and the subsequent recovery in the low-latitude realm. This extinction was probably time-equivalent with a global benthic marine mass extinction, and both events may have been linked to climatic perturbation caused by the Emeishian volcanic activity in China, which reached its peak around 260 Ma. • Revision of tetrapod tracks and stratigraphy of the Pélitique Formation of France • Introduction of Assemblage V and Dicynodontipus sub-biochron • Earliest post Capitanian-extinction faunal assemblage of low-latitudes • The late Capitanian dinocephalian extinction is a global synchronous event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]