This volume comprises 28 papers resulting from the 7th International Conference on Fossil Insects, Arthropods and Amber which took place at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, from 26 April to 1 May 2016. The papers are about crustaceans, insects, bivalves, fungi and plants; ranging in age from the Devonian to the Miocene. The latter three groups, along with many of the insects, are preserved in amber from the Lebanon, Spain, Myanmar, India, the Baltic Region and the Dominican Republic. Of the papers that describe or discuss insects, 12 orders are represented: dragonflies (Odonata); palaeodictyopterans (Palaeodictyoptera); earwigs (Dermaptera); crickets (Orthoptera); bugs (Hemiptera); beetles (Coleoptera); flies (Diptera); ants (Hymenoptera); scorpionflies (Mecoptera); lacewings (Neuroptera); tarachopterans (Tarachoptera); and caddisflies (Trichoptera). Four of the papers are by senior authors who were unable to attend the conference (Kaasalainen, Kettunen, Smith and Zheng), however a co-author of each paper did attend.
The Conference Programme was as follows:
26 April Evening Registration and Reception
27 April Registration, Opening Welcome and Scientific Lectures
28 April Conference Photo and Scientific Lectures
29 April Scientific Lectures and Evening Conference Meal
30 April Fieldtrip to Sites in Aberdeenshire
1 May Fieldtrip to Sites in the Scottish Borders
The venue for this conference was decided in 2013 by vote at the 6th Conference in Byblos, Lebanon. Subsequently, the logo for the conference (see front cover) was produced by Sarah Stewart and is a stylised reconstruction of the palaeodictyopteran Lithomantis carbonarius Woodward, Reference Woodward1876, from Ayr, the first fossil insect to be discovered in Scotland (see Ross Reference Ross2010). The white on blue background was chosen to reflect the Saltire (Scottish flag). The book of Abstracts was compiled and published just prior to the conference (Penney & Ross Reference Penney and Ross2016).
One hundred and five delegates from 25 countries (including Australia and New Zealand) registered, with an additional 12 people comprising the NMS team and people who contributed significantly to the conference. Nineteen delegates brought their partners and other family members along to explore Edinburgh.
The initial Registration and Welcome Reception were held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, George Street (Fig. 1) This included a lecture by Jeff Liston on Scottish whisky and a tasting of four different whiskies from different parts of Scotland. Delegates were given souvenir shot glasses engraved with the Conference logo to take away with them.
Figure 1 Delegates at the Reception at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Left to right: Scott Anderson; Viktor Baranov (seated); Anna Lena Moeller; Evgeny Perkovsky; Frauke Stebner; Art Borkent; Mónica Solórzano Kraemer (facing away); Jiří Kolibáč; Xavier Delclòs.
The three days of lectures took place in the Auditorium of the National Museum of Scotland in Chambers Street. The first day started with welcome talks by the NMS Director of Collections (Xerxes Mazda), the NMS Keeper of Natural Sciences (Nick Fraser; Fig. 2) and the President of the International Palaeoentomological Society (Dany Azar), who provided the welcome news that the Society was now officially registered. These were followed by lectures on arthropods and Paleozoic insects, with a parallel session on flies (Diptera).
Figure 2 Nick Fraser giving his welcoming speech in the Auditorium of the National Museum of Scotland.
The second day commenced with the conference photo (see Frontispiece), taken in the Grand Gallery of the Museum, next to the first complete skeleton of Megaloceros giganteus ever collected (in 1819), figured by Cuvier in Reference Cuvier1823. Then followed lectures on insects in general and Mesozoic insects, with a parallel session on wasps, bees and ants (Hymenoptera).
The third day consisted of lectures on amber and Cenozoic insects, with a parallel session on beetles (Coleoptera) and scorpionflies (Mecoptera).
There were 58 scientific lectures and 24 posters in total; for comments on specific talks see the review by Panciroli (Reference Panciroli2016). In the final session, Xiaodan Lin (Capital Normal University, Beijing, China) was presented with an award for the best student talk (Fig. 3), for her talk on the origin of the proboscis in early scorpionflies; and Xavier Delclòs received an award for the best student poster on behalf of Alba Sánchez-Garcia (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain), about work on springtails (Collembola) from Cretaceous Spanish amber. The Dominican Republic won the vote for the venue of the next conference.
Figure 3 Xiaodan Lin receiving her award for the best student talk from President Dany Azar and other committee members of the International Palaeoentomological Society. Left to right: Ed Jarzembowski; Jacek Szwedo; Andrew Ross; Julián Petrulevičius; Vladimir Blagoderov; Olivier Béthoux.
During the three days of lectures, small parties were taken to the Palaeobiology Store in the National Museums Collection Centre at Granton, on the north side of Edinburgh (Ross Reference Ross2013), to study the collections. Most visitors wanted to study the amber collection, consisting of just over 500 pieces (photographs of many of the specimens were published in Ross & Sheridan (Reference Ross and Sheridan2013) and a catalogue of the Mexican amber collection was recently published by Ross et al. (Reference Ross, Mellish, Crighton and York2016)). Several specimens were borrowed from the collection, so it is anticipated that future scientific papers will be published as a result.
The Conference Dinner was held at The Hub, a former church near Edinburgh Castle (Fig. 4). A piper greeted guests at the door and, once seated, the guests were entertained by five girls from the Laura Smith School of Highland Dancing (Fig. 5). The girls were presented with amber bracelets at the end of their performance. After the dinner, members of the Polish, Chinese, Spanish and Canadian delegations gave impromptu singing and musical performances, to the delight of all.
Figure 4 A toast to the host at the Conference Dinner at The Hub.
Figure 5 The Laura Smith School of Highland Dancing entertaining the Conference Dinner guests.
The two fieldtrips were optional extras for the delegates. The first trip consisted of taking two coaches to Stonehaven, the site of the earliest-known terrestrial animal in the world (the millipede Pneumodesmus newmani Wilson & Anderson, Reference Wilson and Anderson2004); however, the beds it came from have recently been re-dated as earliest Devonian (Suarez et al. Reference Suarez, Brookfield, Catlos and Stöckli2017). Some of the delegates from land-locked countries confessed that this was the first time they had visited the seaside. The next site was Rhynie, famous for the Rhynie chert, the source of the earliest-known insects and springtails in the world (Ross & York Reference Ross and York2004; Fayers & Trewin Reference Fayers and Trewin2005); however, one of them, Rhyniognatha hirsti, has recently been reinterpreted as a possible centipede (Haug & Haug, Reference Haug and Haug2017). Unfortunately, all that can be seen is a grassy field (the chert lies about 1m below the soil), but pieces of Rhynie chert had been brought along so that the delegates had something to take away with them (Fig. 6). On the return journey, we travelled through the snow-capped Cairngorm Mountains, which looked spectacular in the sunshine.
The second fieldtrip was via three mini-buses to sites not far from Edinburgh. The first visit was to Siccar Point, near Cockburnspath, famous as the site of Hutton's Unconformity. This involved traversing a muddy field full of cows, and it was very windy at the top of the cliffs, which made the trip a more exciting experience. The second locality was Willie's Hole at Chirnside, the site of an important new earliest Carboniferous tetrapod and arthropod fauna discovered by the late Stan Wood. (A memorial volume dedicated to Stan Wood and his discoveries is being prepared for publication by the Earth and Environmental Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.) The final locality was Burnmouth, which displays a spectacular vertical section through latest Devonian and Early Carboniferous non-marine rocks, which have also yielded tetrapod and arthropod fossils (Fig. 7). To get there, we were escorted through the Burnmouth Brae Races, which just happened to coincide with our visit!
Figure 6 The author explaining the importance of the site at Rhynie. The diagonal darker strip in the field (above Brigitte Brauckmann) was where the University of Aberdeen undertook an excavation in 2003. In the foreground, Sonja Wedmann is pleased with her Rhynie chert souvenir, from the 2003 excavation.
Figure 7 The group at Burnmouth, in front of earliest Carboniferous non-marine sediments. Front row (seated), left to right: Vicen Carrió; Sibelle Maksoud; Dany Azar; Sonja Wedmann; Mónica Solórzano Kraemer; Katarzyna Kopeć; Agnieszka Soszyńska-Maj; Kornelia Skibińska; Christel Hoffeins; Uwe Kaulfuss; Scott Anderson. Back row (standing), left to right: Tong Bao; Ryszard Szadziewski; James Jepson; Shih-Wei Lee; Sarah Martin; Alexey Bashkuev; Wiesław Krzemiński; Thomas Hörnschemeyer; Ewa Krzemińska; Julián Petrulevičius; Andrew Ross; Alexander Schmidt; Vincent Perrichot; Sarah Stewart; Alicja Brysz; Jiří Kolibáč; Jacek Szwedo; Jakub Prokop.
The second fieldtrip was rounded off nicely with the discovery of a millipede (Diplopoda) fossil in a fallen block by Alexey Bashkuev and Wolfgang Zessin, only the second millipede to be found there (see Ross et al. Reference Ross, Edgecombe, Clark, Bennett, Carrió, Contreras-Izquierdo, Crighton, Fraser, Smithson and Clackin press). This discovery was the perfect end to the Conference.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks go to the NMS Palaeobiology team for their help with the conference, particularly for packing the delegates' packs and manning the Registration desk. In addition, thanks to Sarah Stewart for producing the logo; to Sarah Stewart and Christine Thompson for writing the fieldtrip guide; to Jeff Liston for giving a talk on whisky at the Reception; to Stig Walsh for hosting the visitors to the Collections; to Yves Candela for escorting delegates to and from the parallel sessions; to Vicen Carrió for contributing to the organising of the dinner; to Rachel Russell for help with finances, delegates' list and invitation letters; and to Mary Freeman for taking the conference photograph. Special thanks go to Zoe Pittaway (NMS Business Support), for help in dealing with tricky financial issues.
Many thanks also go to David Penney of Siri Scientific Press for compiling and editing the Abstract book; to the Palaeontological Association for a grant to cover the accommodation costs of the keynote speakers; to the Royal Society of Edinburgh for providing the Reception venue and agreeing to publish the proceedings; to Convention Edinburgh for enabling the booking of delegate's accommodation; to Chungkun Shih for permission to use his photographs; and to Goldmajor Ltd for gifting the amber bracelets for the dancers at the dinner.
For help with the field trips, I would like to thank Sidney Johnston (Aberdeen Geological Society) for supplying handouts about Pneumodesmus; Nigel Trewin (formerly University of Aberdeen) for supplying pieces of Rhynie Chert as souvenirs; Judi MacLean for access to Willie's Hole; and Oliver Kieran and Kenny Wilson for enabling us to visit Burnmouth whilst the races were on.
Very special thanks go to Vicki Hammond, Journals Officer of the RSE, for the tireless hard work she has put into this and other volumes of EESTRSE.
