Notocupes

Notocupes is an extinct genus of medium-sized archostematan beetles from the Mesozoic Era of Eurasia, including over 50 described species. Historically, the genus was classified as a member of the family Ommatidae, but the presence of characters such as the horizontal mandibular cutting edge, separated procoxae and overlapping abdominal sternites indicate that the genus may have a closer affinity with the family Cupedidae.[1] Notocupes is considered to be a junior synonym of Zygadenia by Kirejtshuk (2020),[2] but other researchers suggest to reserve the genus Zygadenia as a form taxon for isolated elytra that probably belong to the genus Notocupes, while retaining Notocupes as a valid genus for complete body fossils.[3][4][5] Most species of Notocupes were described from compression fossils. An additional three species were described from Cenomanian-aged Burmese amber, which were treated as a separate genus, Echinocups, by Kirejtshuk (2020), but Li et al. (2023) consider Echinocups to be a junior synonym of Notocupes.[6] Notocupes has a flattened body, which may suggest that it occupied narrow habitats, such as living under bark. Some species had serrated/spined margins of the carapace, which may have served as a defense against predators, or served as camouflage to resemble bark.[1]

Notocupes Temporal range:
Various specimens of Notocupes from the Middle Jurassic of China and mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Suborder:	Archostemata
Genus:	†Notocupes Ponomarenko, 1964
Synonyms
Sinocupes Lin, 1976 Chengdecupes Hong, 1983 ?Conexicoxa Lin, 1986 Echinocups Kirejtshuk and Jarzembowski, 2020 Lupicupes Ren, 1995 Amblomma Tan et al., 2005 Ovatocupes Tan and Ren, 2006