Cretaceous Collembola (Arthropoda, Hexapoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of Canada

Previously only one specimen of springtail (Collembola) has been described worldwide from the Cretaceous. The present work reports the results of an examination of seventy-eight collembolan specimens from Canadian Upper Cretaceous amber. Sixty-three specimens have been identified at the generic level, none of which belongs to extant genera. All are placed within eight newly erected genera. Most of these specimens belong to a single new genus, Protoisotoma, of the family Isotomidae. Also included are members of the broadly construed families Sminthuridae, Neanuridae, and Tomoceridae. Re-examination of the type of Protentomobrya reaffirms its separate familial status. One additional specimen of an undescribed genus is placed in a new family. These data support a probable extinction of the Canadian arboreal Collembola fauna at the end of the Cretaceous.