Strashila Incredibilis, a New Enigmatic Mecopteroid Insect With Possible Siphonapteran Affinities From the Upper Jurassic of Siberia

The Lower to Middle Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous deposits of Transbaikalia in East Siberia are rich in fossil insects (Zherikhin, 1978, 1985). The Late Jurassic insect assemblages are less diverse there. In part this is because only two fossil sites are better explored there, particularly those from the Uda and Bada (formerly Zun-Nemetey) Formations at the upper Uda River and near the town of Mogzon, respectively. More important, however, is that in both cases the source deposits are of essentially similar age and origin; all have an impoverished terrestrial insect fauna, for unknown reasons. And yet from there a very strange insect has been discovered which is described below. Typified names of the higher taxa are used in the contribution, following to the proposal by Rohdendorf (1977, Rasnitsyn, 1982).