Aeshnidae, Leach, 1815

Archibald, S. Bruce, Cannings, Robert A. & Greenwalt, Dale E., 2022, Kishenehna prima, a new genus and species of darner dragonfly (Odonata, Aeshnidae, Gomphaeschninae) from the early middle Eocene Kishenehn Formation of Montana, USA, Zootaxa 5099 (4), pp. 496-500 : 499

Aeshnidae in the early Paleogene

Aeshnidae comprise the majority of dragonflies described in the early Paleogene, see Table 1 of Archibald & Cannings (2019). They are still diverse and plentiful today, although they have been overtaken in diversity by the Libellulidae , which appear first in the Oligocene, and the Gomphidae, which has a great diversity in the late Jurassic through mid-Cretaceous, a single species in the Ypresian (early Eocene), and then is better known beginning in the Oligocene ( Archibald & Cannings 2019).

In North America, fossil Aeshnidae are found in the Paleocene of Alberta and North Dakota ( Wighton & Wilson 1986), the Paleocene or Eocene of Alaska ( Garrouste & Nel 2019), the Ypresian of the Okanagan Highlands ( Archibald & Cannings 2019), and the Priabonian (late Eocene) at Florissant (summarised by Meyer 2003) about 1200 kilometers to the southeast. The Gomphaeschninae is well represented in Paleocene and Eocene localities of Europe and North America ( Archibald & Cannings 2019, Table 1).

Lutetian dragonflies have only been reported from Eckfeld Maar (including Gomphaeschninae : Wappler 2003) (Grube Messel, Germany, referred to as Lutetian by Archibald & Cannings 2019 is now dated as Ypresian including the Ypresian/Lutetian boundary by Lenz et al. 2015). Bartonian dragonflies are not known. Kishenehna prima is the only dragonfly of this time known in the Western Hemisphere, increasing our scant knowledge of them in the middle Eocene.