The first discovery of Cyrtophyllitinae (Orthoptera, Haglidae) from the Middle Jurassic and its morphological implications

Abstract

Liassophyllum caii Gu & Ren sp. nov., the first Middle Jurassic (Bathonian–Callovian boundary interval) Cyrtophyllitinae species is described from the Jiulongshan Formation of Daohugou, Inner Mongolia, China. The exceptionally well-preserved materials reveal fine details of the body structure and morphology including extremely long antennae, the positions of antennal sockets, elongate cerci, long saltatory legs and forewing variations.

Key words:

• Ensifera
• Liassophyllum
• systematics
• morphology
• Jiulongshan Formation
• Daohugou

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr Andre Nel and Dr Sam W. Heads for valuable comments. We thank Dr Stephen McLoughlin for improving our manuscript. We thank Dr David Rentz, for providing scientific literature and improving and early version of our manuscript. We thank Dr A. V. Gorochov and Dr Shi Fu-Ming for also providing scientific literature. We thank Dr Thomas A. Hegna for improving an early version of our manuscript and for valuable suggestions. This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40872022, 31071964), the Nature Science Foundation of Beijing (No. 5082002), the Key and PHR Program of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, the Chinese Municipal Education Commission Discipline Construction and Graduate Education Construction Project, a grant (No. O529YX5105) from the Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a grant from the Research Fund of the Orthopterists' Society.