Late pleistocene beetle records from Northern Asia

The analysis of fossil insect (mostly beetle) assemblages allows the reconstruction of the unique tundra-steppe environment that existed throughout the Pleistocene in northern-east Siberia, especially the Late Pleistocene. The fossil assemblages include insects from different habitats, which do not live together in any single region today, such as a Mongolian weevil and an Arctic ground beetle. Only a few true forest species were found in the fossil assemblages. There were some variations in the composition of insect faunal assemblages during the Late Pleistocene, due to differing ages of faunas and to differing site latitudes. The Last Glacial Maximum brought a spectacular increase of arctic insects in the north, but changes were much less remarkable in the south. During the terminal stage of the Late Pleistocene, the typical tundra-steppe insect assemblages reappeared, before the dramatic destruction of this ecosystem at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary.