First fossil record of Caliscelidae (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea): a new Early Miocene Dominican amber genus extends the distribution of Augilini to the Neotropics

Abstract

A new extinct genus and new species, Quizqueiplana alexbrowni gen. et sp. nov. of the tribe Augilini Baker belonging to the family Caliscelidae Amyot & Serville (Hemiptera, Fulgoromorpha, Fulgoroidea), is described from Early Miocene Dominican amber. This is the first fossil record of this planthopper family and an unexpected occurrence of the tribe Augilini from the Neotropical region. Augilini are only known from extant taxa in South-East Asia and Madagascar, as shown in a checklist of taxa in the tribe with their distributions. Biogeographical consequences for the Augilini lineage, now with a so-called Gondwanian disjunction pattern, are discussed. Host-plant data suggest that ancestral Augilini fed on Bambusoideae. A Late Palaeocene Laurasian origin for the lineage with later dispersal events, or an older Indo-Malagasian lineage with an early vicariance and later dispersion events, remain two possible explanations of the origin of the Augilini.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:A5307860-2947-4EBA-BD12-E71E78CC535E

Keywords:

• Early Miocene
• Caliscelidae
• amber
• biogeography
• Gondwanian disjunction pattern
• Laurasian origin

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our sincere thanks to Mr Alex Brown for the gift of the material studied to the MNHN. We also thank Dr Jacek Szwedo (Department of Zoology and Parasitology, University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland) and Dr David Penney (Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, UK) for having provided information and advice. Ms Xinyu Li (Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China) illustrated the morphological details and helped in composing the figures. Our research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant no. 31270043 awarded to RRW] and by a 2012 MNHN invited scientist grant, project ‘Tropiduchidae’ to RRW and TB.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article can be accessed here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2015.1032376