First Jurassic grasshopper (Insecta, Caelifera) from China

Abstract

Orthoptera is divided into two suborders, the Ensifera (katydids, crickets and mole crickets) and the Caelifera (grasshoppers and pygmy mole crickets). The earliest definitive caeliferans are those found in the Triassic (Bethoux & Ross 2005). The extinct caeliferan families, such as Locustopsidae and Locustavidae, may prove to be stem groups to some of the modern superfamilies (Grimaldi & Engel 2005). Locustopsidae is known from the Late Triassic or Early Jurassic to Late Cretaceous, consisting of two subfamilies (Gorochov et al. 2006). They are recorded from Europe, England, Russia, central Asia, China, Egypt, North America, Brazil and Australia. Up to now, Late Mesozoic fossil deposits of China has been reported plenty taxa of orthopterids, e.g. ensiferans, phasmatodeans, grylloblattids (Cui et al. 2012; Gu et al. 2010; Gu et al. 2012a; Gu et al. 2012b; Ren et al. 2012; Wang et al. 2014); but, with few caeliferans records, only four species, Pseudoacrida costata Lin 1982, Mesolocustopsis sinica Hong 1990, Tachacris stenosis Lin 1977 and T. turgis Lin 1980, were reported from the Early Cretaceous of Ningxia, Shandong, Yunnan and Zhejiang of China.

Chromosomal-Level Reference Genome for the Chinese Endemic Pygmy Grasshopper, Zhengitettix transpicula, Sheds Light on Tetrigidae Evolution and Advancing Conservation Efforts

“…Expanding this clade further establishes the pivotal representation of the Tetrigidae lineage, estimated to have branched off around 157.61 million years ago, in the Mesozoic era (Figure 5). Our findings align with the available fossil evidence for Tetrigidae [32], cementing the family's status as an ancient lineage distantly apart from Acridoidea, with an evolutionary history extending over 150 million years [33,34].…”

“…The estimated divergence from its closest relative, E. oculatus, roughly 36 million years ago, aligns with significant environmental shifts corresponding to the onset of Antarctic cooling, suggesting that pygmy grasshoppers may have adapted to these changes, leading to the diverse and alpine distributions that we observe today. This narrative is supported by the genomic divergence dating back to over 150 million years, potentially driven by early continental drift events during the Jurassic, which laid the groundwork for the current ecological diversity [32,43,44].…”

The first Elcanidae (Orthoptera, Elcanoidea) from the Daohugou fossil bed of northeastern China

“…Other Orthoptera are commonly discovered from the Daohugou fossil bed, at the widely known and profuse fossil assemblages of Yanliao Biota, northeastern China. Numerous species discovered from this fossil bed have been described, including ensiferans and caeliferans (Ren and Meng 2006; Ren et al 2010, 2019; Gu et al 2009, 2011, 2012, 2016; Wang et al 2017). In this report we describe a new species of Elcanidae, Parelcana pulchmacula sp.…”