Palaeontinoidea

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

Palaeontinoidea Temporal range: Upper Permian to Middle Cretaceous PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Fossil forewing of Mesogereon superbum
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hemiptera
Suborder:	Auchenorrhyncha
Infraorder:	Cicadomorpha
Superfamily:	†Palaeontinoidea Handlirsch, 1906
Families
See text

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

References

1. Boris B. Rohdendorf; Donald Ray Davis, eds. (1991). Fundamentals of paleontology: Arthropoda, Tracheata, Chelicerata. Volume 9. Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Science Foundation. p. 220–224.
2. Bo Wang; Haichun Zhang & Jacek Szwedo (2009). "Jurassic Palaeontinidae from China and the Higher Systematics of Palaeontinoidea (Insecta: Hemiptera: Cicadomorpha)". Palaeontology. The Palaeontological Association. 52 (Part 1): 53–64. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00826.x.
3. Fabrice Lefebvre; André Nel; Francine Papier; Léa Grauvogel-Stamm & Jean-Claude Gall (1998). "The First 'Cicada-like Homoptera' from the Triassic of the Vosges, France" (PDF). Palaeontology. The Palaeontological Association. 41 (Part 6): 1195–1200. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 24, 2012. Retrieved July 21, 2011.