First hairy cicadas in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Tettigarctidae).

Abstract Two new genera and two new species of Tettigarctidae, Cretotettigarcta burmensis gen. et sp. nov., and Vetuprosbole parallelica gen. et sp. nov., are described and illustrated based on two well-preserved specimens from the mid-Cretaceous amber of northern Myanmar. C. burmensis is assigned to the subfamily Tettigarctinae, providing several peculiar features that are not found in the extant representatives of Tettigarctinae: apex of fore femur armed with distal conical spine; hind tibia armed with three lateral spines; ScP + R branching distinctly after MP branching; MP 3+4 connecting CuA 1 by cross vein m-cu. The other species V. parallelica is tentatively assigned to the tribe Turutanoviini of Cicadoprosbolinae. C. burmensis resembles Sunotettigarcta hirsuta from the Middle–Upper Jurassic of Daohugou beds (northeastern China) in its general characters of wing venation and pronotum, which suggests a close relationship between the Daohugou and Burmese amber biotas. It likely reveals a range shift southwards after the Daohugou palaeoecosystem collapsed during the Late Jurassic in north China. Our discovery represents the first record of amber-entombed Tettigarctidae from the Mesozoic, which greatly widens the biogeographic distribution and increases the palaeodiversity of the Mesozoic tettigarctids. It also provides new insights into the morphological diversification and early evolutionary history of tettigarctids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]