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Blapsium
Blapsium is an extinct genus of beetles from the Middle Jurassic of England. The only described species is B. egertoni, which was first described by John O. Westwood in 1854. The species is known from a single specimen found by the Earl of Enniskillen in the Stonesfield Slate, now known as part of the Taynton Limestone Formation, which Sir Philip Egerton then passed to Westwood for description. The specimen is deposited in the Natural History Museum, London. It is incompletely preserved, lacking a head, pronotum and legs. It has a broad, convex body. It has a very short metathorax, which suggests that it was possibly apterous. In his original description of the genus, Westwood compared Blapsium to the darkling beetles and ground beetles. Ponomarenko (2006) redescribed the holotype of B. egertoni and referred it to the tribe Notocupedini in the family Ommatidae (considered in the paper to be a subfamily of Cupedidae), which was followed by Kirejtshuk (2020).
Article summary
Blapsium is an extinct genus of beetles from the Middle Jurassic of England. The only described species is B. egertoni, which was first described by John O. Westwood in 1854. The species is known from a single specimen found by the Earl of Enniskillen in the Stonesfield Slate, now known as part of the Taynton Limestone Formation, which Sir Philip Egerton then passed to Westwood for description. The specimen is deposited in the Natural History Museum, London. It is incompletely preserved, lacking a head, pronotum and legs. It has a broad, convex body. It has a very short metathorax, which suggests that it was possibly apterous. In his original description of the genus, Westwood compared Blapsium to the darkling beetles and ground beetles. Ponomarenko (2006) redescribed the holotype of B. egertoni and referred it to the tribe Notocupedini in the family Ommatidae (considered in the paper to be a subfamily of Cupedidae), which was followed by Kirejtshuk (2020).
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
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