Latiblattella avita sp. nov. (Blattaria: Ectobiidae) from the Eocene Kishenehn Formation, Montana, USA

Abstract

Latiblattella avita Greenwalt and Vidlika, 2015, sp. nov., and the first fossil of the genus, is described. The discovery of a fossil representative of this genus suggests that Latiblattella was more widely distributed in the Eocene. The Eocene American cockroach fauna is mostly comprised of what are today, cosmopolitan genera while the extant genus Latiblattella Hebard, 1917 is restricted in its geographical distribution to Central America, Mexico, Florida and Arizona. The discovery of Latiblattella avita, in combination with the recent description of Cariblattoides labandeirai Vransky et al., 2012, also documents the presence of rather derived representatives of the family Ectobiidae as early as the Middle Eocene.