in Jurassic and Cretaceous Stratigraphy

Earth Science Frontiers, Vol. 17, Special Issue, Aug. 2010 ISSN 1005-2321
New Haglidae (Insecta: Orthoptera: Hagloidea) from the Jurassic of
China and Their Implications for the Early Evolution of Acoustic
Communication
Yan Fang, Haichun Zhang, Bo Wang
State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China (E-mail: fangyan1001@yahoo.cn; yanfang@nigpas.ac.cn)
The orthopteran superfamily Haglioidea is a
crown group of Ensifera which existed from the
Triassic to recent (Sharov, 1968; Gorochov, 1995; Yuan,
2006). The fossil record of this group is very rich and
diverse during Jurassic times. It intensively diversified
in the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, and then
quickly declined. There are two small extant sub-
families: Prophalangopsinae, with 5 species in 3 genera
from China and northeastern India; and Cyphoderrinae,
with 4 species in 2 genera from western North America
(Zeuner, 1939; Carpenter, 1992; Liu et al., 2009). The
Hagloidea was possibly originated from the Carboni-
ferous to Permian Oedischioidea, which is also the
ancestor of two large recent superfamilies: Tetti-
gonioidea and Stenopelmatoidea (Gorochov, 1995).
The extinct family Haglidae is the second largest
group of Hagloidea, and contains about 56 genera from
the Lower Triassic to Cretaceous of Europe and Asia.
However, most known fossils are just wing impressions,
and some of them need re-consideration. So far, few
comprehensive phylogenetic analyses have been at-
tempted. The family Haglidae appears to be a para-
phyletic group, and the relationships between major
lineages are still poorly understood (Béthoux, 2002).
The phenomenon of sexual dimorphism is wide-
spread in fore wings of Jurassic Haglidae, of which
most males have acoustic mating system. These insects
produce calling and courtship sounds through friction
between specialized veins of fore wings, and received
these signals primarily via auditory tympana on the
front tibiae of both sexes (Jost and Shaw, 2006). This
kind of acoustic structures and communication is consi-
dered to be the most primitive of all tegminally stri-
dulating Ensifera. Tegminal stridulatory morpho- logy
and tibial tympana of Ensifera have evolved more than
once in this suborder (Zeuner, 1939; Sharov, 1968; Jost
and Shaw, 2006), and the Middle Jurassic is an im-
portant period of the evolution of stridulatory apparatus
in Haglidae. The venation of fore wings related to
making song changed distinctly in the Middle Jurassic,
and two opposite trends occur in the evolution of
stridulatory apparatus of this group (Gorochov, 2003).
The detailed research on the Jurassic Haglidae is very
important not only for understanding the early evolu-
tion of acoustic communication, but also for investi-
gating the phylogenetic relationships among recent
lineages of Tettigonioidea and Stenoplmatoidea.
Very recently, abundant Haglidae were discovered
from the Middle Jurassic of China (Fang et al., 2007,
2009; Gu et al., 2009). A new genus with two species of
Haglidae, was identified based on well-preserved
fossils from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou Biota (Inner
Mongolia, China). The diagnostic characters and syste-
matic position of genera Mongolovoliopus (Gorochov,
1986), Bacharovololiopus (Gorochov, 1986) Bachara-
boilus (Gorochov, 1988) and Tettaboilus (Gorochov,
1988) are discussed in detail. The terminal diagnostic
characters of Haglidae are discussed, and subfamilies,
genera, and species are keyed. The newly described
genus is characteristic by the long arched ScA, oblique
vein between RP and MA, and stridulatory on fore
wings fairly strong and plumbed to posterior margin.
The new genera shares some features with basal
Haglids. The absence of the oblique vein between RP
and MA and strengthen of CuP indicate the transform of
orientation of stridulatory vein and reduction of middle
part of fore wings. These characters reflect the im-
provement of stridulatory apparatus of tegmina pro-
bably due to the appearance of new predatory verte-
brates with good visual analyser in the Jurassic.
Key words: Haglidae; Orthoptera; Jurassic; China
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