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New paper on dung beetle fossils


We review all 33 named scarabaeine fossils and describe two new species from Dominican amber (Canthochilum alleni sp.n., Canthochilum philipsivieorum sp.n.). We provide a catalogue of all fossil Scarabaeinae and evaluate their assignment to this subfamily. Not all dung beetle fossils are reliable! The best-preserved fossils are analyzed phylogenetically. The presence of only extant genera in the late Oligocene and all later records suggests that the main present-day dung beetle lineages had already been established by the late Oligocene–mid Miocene.

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