New granulidae (Hemiptera: Scytinopteroidea) from the Middle Triassic Tongchuan Formation of NW China

ABSTRACT

A new genus and species of the extinct hemipteran family Granulidae, Sinogranulus qishuiheensis gen. et sp. nov., is established on the basis of a tegmen specimen collected from the Middle Triassic Tongchuan Formation of Shaanxi, NW China. As the second genus and species of Granulidae, it provides new and detailed information on the tegmen morphology for this family, and Granulidae shows a much simpler tegminal venation pattern than remaining families of the superfamily Scytinopteroidea. SEM observation indicates that diagenetic alternation may have influenced the tegminal micro-structure of the new specimen. The existence of granular ornamentations may improve the tegminal mechanical strength and aerodynamical efficiency in Granulidae.

KEYWORDS:

• Sinogranulus qishuiheensis gen. et sp. nov
• Granulidae
• Tongchuan Formation
• Middle Triassic
• China

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Jacek Szwedo (University of Gdańsk, Poland) for helpful discussion, Da-Ran Zheng and Xiang-Dong Zhao (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, P. R. China) for their assistance during scientific fieldwork, and Yan Fang (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, P. R. China) for helping with the SEM observation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB26000000) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (41688103, 41730317).