''Aoriopsis'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus of leaf beetles in the subfamily Eumolpinae. It contains only one species, ''Aoriopsis eocenicus'', and is known only from lowermost

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...

collected from

Le Quesnoy Le Quesnoy (; pcd, L' Kénoé) is a commune and small town in the east of the Nord department of northern France. It was part of the historical province of French Hainaut. It had a keynote industry in shoemaking before the late 1940s, followed ...

, Oise Department,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The species is known only from one fossil, the holotype, specimen number "PA 2437". It is an almost complete female beetle included in a small piece of amber. The specimen is currently deposited at the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. ''Aoriopsis'' was first studied by Alexey G. Moseyko and Alexander G. Kirejtshuk of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Andre Nel of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. Their

type description A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species that have be ...

of the genus was published in the journal '' Annales de la Société Entomologique de France'' in 2010. The generic name, ''Aoriopsis'', is a combination of the generic name '' Aoria'' and the Greek root ' (appearance, countenance, face). The specific name, ''eocenicus'', is derived from "Eocene", the geological epoch the genus lived in.

References

† † Prehistoric beetle genera Ypresian insects {{paleo-beetle-stub