Vicariant high-latitude genus in the lower Eocene, the case of tropical planthoppers (Fulgoromorpha: Lophopidae) in Northern Denmark and Patagonia, Argentina

PETRULEVICIUS, J. F. RUST, J., WAPPLER, T., SOLÓRZANO KRAEMER, M. M. Y SOULIER-PERKINS

Beijing

Congreso; V International Congress of Paleoentomology, III International Meeting on Paleoarthropodology, y IV Amber International Congress (?Fossil X3?); 2010

A new genus, Danargentina gen. nov., from the lower Eocene of Patagonia, Argentina and Northern Denmark, is described. The observation of a series of wing venation characters suggested that this genus should be placed within the Lophopidae. The genus has two species, Danargentina patagonica sp. nov. from Laguna del Hunco, and Danargentina nordjylandica sp. nov. from the Mo-Clay. These are the second and third recorded fossils of Lophopidae, the first fossil originating from the middle Eocene of Germany. When included in a Lophopidae phylogenetic analysis, as being part of the ingroup, these two fossils appear to belong to Bisma+, a group of Oriental distribution. Since they share several synapomorphies they can be considered as two species of the same genus. These fossils appear to represent the oldest record of the family and since this new genus seems to find its place high in the phylogenetic tree of the Lophopidae, it indicates that the family has a Cretaceous age. The transcontinental distribution of the genus with species in Southern South America and Northern Europe, points as well toward such hypothesis whereby the Lophopidae could have appeared earlier in the origins of the Fulgoroidea. The actual distribution seems relictual compared to a once possible widespread distribution throughout the tropics in the Paleogene, including high latitudes in Europe and South America at the lower Eocene.