1988] 
Heie & Poinar — Fossil aphid 
163 
venation have been described as species of Mindarus, but could 
some of them belong to the Lizerini? 
Five fossil Mindarus species have been described, viz. three from 
Baltic amber, M. magnus Baker, M. parvus Heie and M. transpar- 
ens (Germar & Berendt) (Heie, 1968; 1971), and two from the Oligo- 
cene clay at Florissant, Colorado, M. recurvus (Buckton) and M. 
scudderi (Buckton) (Heie, 1967; 1985). 
The three amber species belong without doubt to Mindarus. None 
of them have saltatorial fore legs. The cauda is visible in parvus 
(Heie, 1967) and one specimen of magnus (Heie, 1969), and is short 
as in recent Mindarus spp. M. parvus shows on one side a short, 
cylindrical structure partly covered by an impurity. It is, however, 
not a siphunculus, but probably the border of a drop of secretion 
from a siphuncular pore. The differences between parvus and the 
recent species abietinus are so small that parvus in fact may be 
regarded as a dwarf form of abietinus or one of the other still living 
species. 
The siphuncular pores and cauda of the two species from Floris- 
sant are invisible. The legs are badly preserved, but the general 
appearance is much like Mindarus. Both are very large, body length 
being about 3 mm in scudderi (Buckton) and 4 mm in recurvus 
(Buckton). Some of the Mindarus specimens in Baltic amber are of 
similar size, while all Lizerini are rather small aphids. 
Mindaridae is the only extant aphid family containing more fossil 
than recent species. The family has apparently changed very little 
since the Eocene since the differences between the fossil and recent 
species are small, although representatives showed greater diversity 
in the Early Tertiary than they do now. The three or four recent 
species which now occur in temperate North America and Eurasia, 
are “living fossils.” They include M. obliquus (Cholodkovsky) on 
Picea in Eurasia, M. abietinus Koch on Abies in Europe and North 
America, M. japonicus Takahashi on Abies in East Asia, and M. 
victoria Essig on Abies in North America. Some of these names are 
probably synonyms. The difference between M. abietinus and M. 
japonicus is so small that they may be geographical races of one 
species (Heie, 1967, p. 34). The former has 12-27 secondary rhinaria 
on antennal segment III, while the latter has 24-37 secondary rhina- 
ria. We have not seen material of M. victoria. 
