A remarkable psyllomorph family from Cretaceous Burmese amber, Miralidae stat. nov. (= Dinglidae syn. nov.; Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha)

Abstract

Cretaceous resins have preserved a remarkable diversity of sternorrhynchans. Burmese amber, formed in the mid-Cretaceous tropics, contains more numerous and diverse Psyllomorpha than all other fossil localities of the period together. The genus Dingla Szwedo et Drohojowska, 2020, previously placed into a separate family and infraorder, turned out to be similar in all essential characters to Mirala Burckhardt et Poinar, 2019 and Burmala Liu et al., 2021; therefore we synonymize Dinglidae Szwedo et Drohojowska, 2020 with Miralinae Shcherbakov, 2020 and raise the last subfamily to the full family status. A sister-group relationship between Dinglomorpha and Aleyrodomorpha in the cladistic analysis of Drohojowska et al. (2020a) was based on incorrect interpretation of characters. @@ala @@ioides gen. et sp. nov. from Burmese amber differs from other miralid genera by spotted forewings without pterostigma and the structure of terminalia in both sexes. In Miralidae, we discovered a long annulated labium and compound wax pores on the ventral side of the abdomen, for the first time among Hemiptera. The compound wax pores may have helped prevent miralids from sticking to the honeydew excreted. The long, flexible second labial segment, reinforced by sclerotized rings, probably allowed the protrusible length of the stylet bundle to be increased by arching the labium, as in mosquitoes.