Palaeontinoidea Explained

Palaeontinoidea is an extinct superfamily of cicadomorph hemipteran insects. This superfamily contains three families.^[1]

Description

Palaeontinoids were comparatively large, cicada-like insects that existed from the Upper Permian to the Middle Cretaceous (around 260.4 to 112.0 million years ago).

Subdivisions

The three families classified under Palaeontinoidea, along with their age range and collection sites, are the following:

• Mesogereonidae Tillyard, 1921

Upper Triassic

Australia and South Africa. Contains two monophyletic genera.^[2]

• Dunstaniidae Tillyard, 1916

Upper Permian to Lower Jurassic; South Africa, Australia, France, Central Asia, and China.^{[2] [3]}

• Palaeontinidae Handlirsch, 1906

Upper Triassic to Middle Cretaceous; Brazil, China, Russia, Germany, the Transbaikal region, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Contains around 30 to 40 genera and about a hundred species.^[2]

See also

• Prehistoric Lepidoptera
• Prehistoric insects

Notes and References

1. Book: Boris B. Rohdendorf . Donald Ray Davis . Donald R. Davis (entomologist) . Fundamentals of paleontology: Arthropoda, Tracheata, Chelicerata. Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Science Foundation. 1991. 9. 220 - 224.
2. Bo Wang . Haichun Zhang . Jacek Szwedo . amp . 2009. Jurassic Palaeontinidae from China and the Higher Systematics of Palaeontinoidea (Insecta: Hemiptera: Cicadomorpha). Palaeontology. 52. Part 1. 53 - 64. The Palaeontological Association. 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00826.x. free.
3. Fabrice Lefebvre. André Nel. Francine Papier. Léa Grauvogel-Stamm. Jean-Claude Gall. amp. 1998. The First 'Cicada-like Homoptera' from the Triassic of the Vosges, France. Palaeontology. 41. Part 6. 1195 - 1200. The Palaeontological Association. July 21, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20120324051710/http://palaeontology.palass-pubs.org/pdf/Vol%2041/Pages%201195-1200.pdf. March 24, 2012. dead.