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Dominican amber is the fossil resin famous for the best quality of inclusions, exploited in Dominican Republic from the deposits formed in the late Early Miocene, ca. 16 Ma. A new species, Polymera (Polymera) alexanderi sp. n. of the dipteran family Limoniidae is described from this amber. This new limonid belongs to the genus Polymera Wiedemann, 1820 with 63 extant species described mostly from South America. Only three fossil species are known so far from Dominican and Baltic amber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fossil Mycetophilidae from the Aptian Crato Formation-Cretomanota gondwanica gen. nov., sp. nov.-is described, which is the first mycetophilid from the Crato Formation and corresponds to the oldest known fossil leiine and only the second Gondwanan fossil mycetophilid described so far. Cretomanota gondwanica and both species of Alavamanota Blagoderov and Arillo were added as terminals to the data matrix of a general phylogenetic analysis of the Mycetophilidae, and both fit into the Leiinae. Alavamanota is monophyletic, sister to the clade composed by Cretomanota and the extant genus Manota Williston. The biology of the extant members of this fungivorous family corroborates the reconstruction of the Crato palaeoenvironment as including woodlands with humid habitats and microhabitats. The presence of a Cretaceous member of the tribe Manotini at low latitudes in South America reinforces the hypothesis that the clade with all manotines except Leiella Edwards corresponds to a Lower Cretaceous offshoot from a group in southern Gondwana expanding its distribution to more northern areas into the Gondwana and into Laurasia., (© 2022 Willi Hennig Society.)