Phylogeny of Evanioidea (Hymenoptera, Apocrita), with descriptions of new Mesozoic species from China and Myanmar

The phylogeny of the superfamily Evanioidea is presented using morphology and DNA sequence data of selected extant and fossil genera by employing two phylogenetic methods, maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference. Based on our new results, the monophyly of Evanioidea is corroborated. Evanioidea, Anomopterellidae, Othniodellithidae, Andreneliidae and Evaniidae are monophyletic families, while Praeaulacidae, Aulacidae, Baissidae and Gasteruptiidae are paraphyletic families. In addition, four new genera (Sinuevaniagen.n., Curtevaniagen.n., Exilaulacusgen.n., Heterobaissagen.n.) with five new species (Sinuevania mirasp.n., Curtevania enerviasp.n., Exilaulacus loculatussp.n., Exilaulacus latussp.n., Heterobaissa apetiolasp.n.), and five additionally new species (Newjersevania longasp.n., Newjersevania brevissp.n., Cretevania tenuissp.n., Cretevania venaesp.n., Praeaulacus rectussp.n.) and one new combination [Cretevania mitis (Li, Shih & Ren, 2014a) comb.n.] are described based on well-preserved fossils from the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation in Inner Mongolia, China, the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation in Liaoning, and mid-Cretaceous amber from Myanmar. This study documents the diversification of one major lineage of the mid-Mesozoic parasitoid revolution that dramatically changed food-web relationships in terrestrial ecosystems.