A New Genus of Spittlebugs (Hemiptera, Cercopidae) from the Eocene of Central Tibetan Plateau

Xiao-Ting Xu; Jacek Szwedo; Di-Ying Huang; Wei-Yu-Dong Deng; Martyna Obroślak; Fei-Xiang Wu; Tao Su

doi:10.3390/insects13090770

A New Genus of Spittlebugs (Hemiptera, Cercopidae) from the Eocene of Central Tibetan Plateau

Insects. 2022 Aug 25;13(9):770. doi: 10.3390/insects13090770.

Authors

Xiao-Ting Xu^{1

2}, Jacek Szwedo³, Di-Ying Huang⁴, Wei-Yu-Dong Deng⁵, Martyna Obroślak³, Fei-Xiang Wu⁶, Tao Su^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ Laboratory of Evolutionary Entomology and Museum of Amber Inclusions, Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Parasitology, University of Gdańsk, 59, Wita Stwosza Street, PL80-308 Gdańsk, Poland.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
⁵ Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China.

Abstract

The superfamily Cercopoidea is commonly named as "spittlebugs", as its nymphs produce a spittle mass to protect themselves. Cosmoscartini (Cercopoidea: Cercopidae) is a large and brightly colored Old World tropical tribe, including 11 genera. A new genus Nangamostethos gen. nov. (type species: Nangamostethostibetense sp. nov.) of Cosmoscartini is described from Niubao Formation, the late Eocene of central Tibetan Plateau (TP), China. Its placement is ensured by comparison with all the extant genera of the tribe Cosmoscartini. The new fossil represents one of few fossil Cercopidae species described from Asia. It is likely that Nangamostethos was extinct from the TP due to the regional aridification and an overturn of plant taxa in the late Paleogene.

Keywords: Cercopidae; Insecta; Nangamostethos tibetense; Niubao Formation; Tibetan Plateau; fossil; late Eocene; new genus; new species.

Abstract

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