New ichneumonids (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) from the Lower Cretaceous of north China

One new genus and seven new species of Ichneumonidae are described from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Huangbanjigou in Beipiao, western Liaoning Province, China. They are: Amplicella flagellata sp. nov., A. exquisitissima sp. nov., A. townesi sp. nov., Tanychora liaoningensis sp. nov., T. rasnitsyni sp. nov., Khasurtella zhangi sp. nov. and Sinochora distorta gen. et sp. nov. The Early Cretaceous ichneumonids in China are known from three assemblages: the Huangbanjigou Assemblage (from Huangbanjigou locality, Liaoning; Yixian Formation), the Sichakou Assemblage (from Sichakou locality, Hebei; Dabeigou Formation) and the Laiyang Assemblage (from Nanligezhuang locality in Laiyang, Shandong; Laiyang Formation) of which the Huangbanjigou one is the most diverse of all known Early Cretaceous localities. Amplicella Kopylov from the Dabeigou Formation includes three species: A. exquisita (Zhang et Rasnitsyn, 2003), A. beipiaoensis (Zhang et Rasnitsyn, 2003) and A. shcherbakovi Kopylov, 2011, and their diagnoses have been revised. Their presence in the Yixian Formation and deposits at the Khasurty locality (Transbaikalia) suggests that the deposits at Khasurty may be not so old as previously thought. All known Early Cretaceous ichneumonids from China belong to Tanychorinae and the absence of more advanced subfamilies (such as Palaeoichneumoninae) indicates a more archaic aspect to these Chinese assemblages as compared with Baissa, Zaza and Romanovka (Transbaikalia) and Bon-Tsagan (Mongolia).