A new species of rust fungi from the fiddle Eocene Sakhalinian amber

Nyssopsora eocuenica Tykhonenko and Hayova sp. nov., the only fossil species of the genus Nyssopsora (Pucciniales), is described from the middle Eocene Sakhalinian amber (Russian Far East). It differs from the other known representatives of the genus by the presence of unbranched hooked appendages on the surface of teliospores. The spores arc embedded in the amber sample in close proximity to a syninclusion, Heterotrissocladius naibuchi (Diptera, Chironomidae); most of them are clinged to the insect's wing or entangled in the bristles on its legs and body. This fossil is ca. 45 myr old and provides useful information for future phylogeny-based calibration and dating of the rust fungi.