Insect from the early Eocene amber of Oise (France): Diversity and palaeontological significance

A general state of the art of entomofaunistic studies of the Eocene Oise amber is presented. Even though several orders have already been the subject of extensive studies, many things remain to be done, especially in the Lepidoptera, Trichoptera, Ephemeroptera, and Blattodea, orders of great importance for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. At the present stage of knowledge, few taxa are shared by the Oise and the younger Baltic amber. This is probably due to rapid changes and evolution in the insect taxa during the Early Eocene, maybe in relation to the great global climatic degradations occurring after the maximum warming of the Late Paleocene.