288 
Psyche 
[December 
rubble ores at the Redmond No. i deposit near Schefferville (lat- 
itude 54°5o' N., longitude 67°oo' W.) in the Knob Lake district, 
Labrador; collected by Professor Erling Dorf. The holotype is 
No. 87270, Invertebrate Paleontology collections, Princeton Uni- 
versity. From associated fossil plants, Dorf (1959) suggests that 
the climate at the time of preservation was warm temperate. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The author is indebted to Frank M. Carpenter of the Biological 
Laboratories, Harvard University, for making the specimen avail- 
able to me and for his numerous critical comments through many 
years on various aspects of insect paleontology. The author also 
wishes to thank his wife, Eleanor Fish Emerson, for her valued as- 
sistance in the preparation and editing of the manuscript. 
SUMMARY 
The earliest known specimen of a termite (Isoptera), that is also 
the earliest known fossil of a strictly social insect, is described and 
figured from a forewing from mid-Cretaceous deposits near Schef- 
ferville, Labrador. The forewing is classified as Cretatermes car- 
penteri , new genus, new species, and included in the subfamily 
Cretatermitinae, new subfamily of the family Hodotermitidae. Sys- 
tematic and phylogenetic interpretations and comparisons are included. 
Bibliography 
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