Pygmy mole crickets (Orthoptera: Tridactylidae) in Dominican and Burmese amber

ABSTRACT

Pygmy mole crickets (Orthoptera: tridactylidae) are small cricket-like insects that have several interesting morphological features. Their front legs are modified for digging and their back legs are adapted for swimming. The present paper describes two pygmy mole crickets: Ellipes dominicana n. sp. in Dominican amber and Cascogryllus lobiferus gen. et sp. n. in Burmese amber. The Dominican amber specimen is characterized by a narrow profemur and protibia, lack of armature on the protibia, absence of metatibial lamellae, 5 terminal apical/subapical spurs, all bearing a single claw, 2-segmented cerci and the paraproct bearing a pair of lobes. The Burmese amber specimen is characterized by 4 dactyls on the protibia, a well developed metatarsus, 2-segmented cerci, well-developed paraproctal processes and paired prosternal tubercles. These specimens add to our knowledge of the geographical history and morphological diversity of pygmy mole crickets.

KEYWORDS:

• Pygmy mole crickets
• Dominican amber
• Burmese amber
• Tridactylidae

Acknowledgments

The author thanks David Rentz for discussions on taxa, characters and references of extant pygmy mole crickets. The author also thanks two anonymous reviewers whose comments improved the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.