Abstract
Storozhenkella phoenix gen. et sp. nov., singled out in Storozhenkellinae subfam. nov., was discovered in the Early Cretaceous Shar-Tolgoy locality in Southern Mongolia. This is a Lazarus taxon—the latest and the only Cretaceous find of Ipsviciidae (Scytinopteroidea) after a gap of about 80 Myr in the fossil record of this family. This hopper was probably a seed or leaf mimic on waterside plants. Distalization of the costal fracture in the new genus is a heteropterous character, also found in the only post-Permian genus Triknightia (Triknightiinae subfam. nov.) of another scytinopteroid family, Paraknightiidae.
References
- Augustyn, W.J., Anderson, B., Stiller, M. & Ellis, A.G. (2013) Specialised host-use and phenophase tracking in restio leafhoppers (Cicadellidae: Cephalelini) in the Cape Floristic Region. Journal of Insect Conservation, 17, 1267–1274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-013-9608-2
- Becker-Migdisova, E.E. (1962) Some new Hemiptera and Psocoptera. Paleontologicheskiy Zhurnal, 1962 (1), 89–104. [in Russian]
- Criscione-Vastano, J. & Grimaldi, D. (2024) New hemipteran insects (Hylicellidae, Ipsviciidae, Heteroptera) from the Triassic Cow Branch Formation of Virginia and North Carolina, USA. Journal of Paleontology, 98, 1028–1040. https://doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2024.52
- Cockerell, T.D.A. (1924) Fossils in the Ondai Sair Formation Mongolia. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 51, 129–144.
- Dmitriev, V.Yu. (2017) Early Cretaceous insect assemblages of Central Asia. Available from: http://palaeoentomolog.ru/bibl/entomocomplex.html (accessed 11 July 2025)
- Evans, J.W. (1946) A natural classification of leaf-hoppers. Part 1. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, 96, 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2311.1946.tb00442.x
- Gontijo, L.M. (2019) Female treehoppers camouflage behaviour is evidenced during oviposition on wild shrubs. Journal of Natural History, 53, 1061–1069. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2019.1629660
- Hamilton, K.G.A. (2000) Five genera of New-world “shovel-headed” and “spoon-bill” leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Dorycephalini and Hecalini). The Canadian Entomologist, 132, 429–503. https://doi.org/10.4039/Ent132429-4
- Handlirsch, A. (1906–1908) Die fossilen Insekten und die Phylogenie der rezenten Formen. Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, ix + 1430 pp., 51 pls https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.34145
- Krassilov, V.A. (1982) Early Cretaceous flora of Mongolia. Palaeontographica Abteilung B Palaeophytologie, 181 (1–3), 1–43.
- Krassilov, V.A. & Bugdaeva, E.V. (1982) Achene-like fossils from the Lower Cretaceous of the Lake Baikal area. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 36, 279–295. https://doi.org/10.1016/0034-6667(82)90023-9
- Lambkin, K.J. (2020) Revision of the Ipsviciidae of the Late Triassic of Queensland (Hemiptera: Cicadomorpha: Scytinopteroidea). Zootaxa, 4860 (4), 503–520. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4860.4.2
- Linnaeus, C. (1758) Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio Decima, Reformata. Laurentii Salvii, Holmiae, [4] + 824 pp. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.542
- Osborn, H. (1903) An interesting case of mimicry. Psyche, 9, 327. https://doi.org/10.1155/1902/97830
- Paleobiology Database (2025) Shar-Tolgoy (PIN collection 4271): Aptian, Mongolia. Available from: https://paleobiodb.org/classic/displayCollResults?geological_group=Bon-Tsagaan&formation=Shar-Tolgoy (accessed 12 July 2025)
- Ponomarenko, A.G. (2025) A survey of fossil insect localities in Mongolia. Shar-Tolgoy. Available from: http://palaeoentomolog.ru/Collections/shar_tologoi.html (accessed 12 July 2025)
- Ponomarenko, A.G. & Bashkuev, A.S. (2018) First Triassic record of the beetle family Permocupedidae (Insecta: Coleoptera): a peculiar example of a Lazarus taxon. Palaontologische Zeitschrift, 92, 587–591. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12542-018-0426-4
- Shcherbakov, D.E. (1984) Systematics and phylogeny of Permian Cicadomorpha (Cimicida and Cicadina). Paleontological Journal, 1984 (2), 87–97.
- Shcherbakov, D.E. (1996) Origin and evolution of the Auchenorrhyncha as shown by the fossil record. In: Schaefer, C.W. (Ed.), Studies on hemipteran phylogeny. Entomological Society of America, Lanham, Maryland, pp. 31–45. https://doi.org/10.4182/AMYC5234.1996.31
- Shcherbakov, D.E. (2011) New and little-known families of Hemiptera Cicadomorpha from the Triassic of Central Asia—early analogs of treehoppers and planthoppers. Zootaxa, 2836 (1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.2836.1.1
- Shcherbakov, D.E. (2021) New Curvicubitidae and Paraknightiidae (Homoptera: Cicadomorpha) from the Triassic of Central Asia. Russian Entomological Journal, 30 (2), 129–134. https://doi.org/10.15298/rusentj.30.2.02
- Shcherbakov, D.E. (2022) A new genus of Ipsviciidae (Hemiptera, Cicadomorpha) with a tegminal strigil from the Triassic of Madygen. Palaeoentomology, 5, 434–438. https://doi.org/10.11646/palaeoentomology.5.5.3
- Shcherbakov, D.E. (2024) New Permian and Triassic Scytinopteridae (Homoptera: Cicadomorpha) with elytrized tegmina, with notes on the origin of true bugs (Heteroptera). Caucasian Entomological Bulletin, 20 (2), 221–228. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14074902
- Sinitsa, S.M. (1993) Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of Central Mongolia. Transactions of the Joint Russian-Mongolian Paleontological Expedition, 42, 1–239. [in Russian]
- Tillyard, R.J. (1919) Mesozoic insects of Queensland. No. 7. Hemiptera Homoptera; with a note on the phylogeny of the suborder. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 44, 857–896.
