5 Conclusions.
To date, the fossil record of Paederinae is restricted to the Cretaceous. However, their presence at localities as far apart as Brazil, Botswana, China and Myanmar during the Cretaceous suggests that they must have arisen at a far earlier time. The new species has diagnostic characters of the Paederinae: antennal insertions concealed under “shelf” (and therefore not visible from above), and hypomeron of prothorax with a well-developed post-coxal process. It also has characters of the Pinophilini: elongated procoxae (as long as the profemora), broad, oval, fully exposed trochantin and a conspicuous second abdominal segment. Moreover, it has characters of the Pinophilina: well-preserved pair of paratergites on segments III-VIII. It differs from other Paederinae because it lacks an emarginate shape of the rear margins of the elytra (Herman 2010), and has two pairs of paratergites on each side of segments III-VI.
Rock fossils and amber fossils offer different palaeoenvironment reconstructions. As such, understanding how rock fossils are fossilized can lead to more accurate interpretations (Mnguni 2022; and Mnguni et al. 2022). Finally, at Orapa, Afrinophilina orapa gen. nov., species nov. would have possibly been found in damp places, under logs, litter or foliage, suggesting a habitat preference fidelity, correlated with arrested evolution (i.e., morphological stasis) for this group over a long evolutionary time. It was probably an active predator which hunted near the crater-lake at Orapa, together with Afristenus orapensis , which has also been recently described by Mnguni et al. (2022). Using extant species, it is worth investigating the possible insect-insect relationships between predators belonging in Paederinae and Steninae.