Kaszab established Annamosdara in 1941 for A. multidentata, which was designated as the type species and recorded from Da Lat in Vietnam. The genus was placed in Stenochiinae, tribe Cnodalonini. Before the description of the Hainan material, only the type species was known. The researchers noted that the genus had scarcely been documented since its establishment, that images of its diagnostic morphology were lacking, and that its biology remained unknown. They were also unable to examine the type specimen of A. multidentata when preparing the study.

The examined material comprised a male holotype and three male paratypes, all deposited at the Museum of Hebei University in Baoding, China. The holotype was collected in Mingfeng Valley, Mount Jianfengling, on 5 January 2023. Two paratypes came from the same valley on 23 January and 6 February 2023, while the third was collected on Mount Jianfengling on 17 May 2007. The specimens were examined and dissected under a Nikon SMZ800 stereomicroscope. Images were made with a Canon EOS 5DSR, Laowa macro lenses and a Nikon microscope objective, and the aedeagi were detached for examination.

Annamosdara jianfengensis is described as having an oval, strongly convex, brownish-grey and dull body with a tuberculated dorsal surface; it is characterized as flightless. Adult males measure 7.8–10.2 mm in body length and 4.5–5.7 mm in width. The head is strongly transverse and uneven, with dense punctures, wrinkles, short setae and convex intervals between the punctures. The frontoclypeal area is depressed medially, its suture is distinct, and the clypeus is more deeply depressed than the frons. Small eyes protrude beyond the contour of the head, and the distance between their outer margins represents the head’s greatest width.

The pronotum is transverse and widest near the middle of its length. Its strongly convex disc bears irregular wrinkles and tubercles, while the lateral margins extend into radial, keel-like ridges with approximately six prominent angles on each side. On the underside of the prothorax, the prosternal process is broad and linguiform, with dense microsculpture, wrinkles and setae. It is convex posteriorly, slopes laterally and bears a small hump around its blunt, tooth-shaped apex, which projects forward in the middle. These features are among the unusual characters that led the researchers to assign the specimens to Annamosdara.

The elytra are broad and oval, almost as wide as long, and strongly convex. Each elytron bears eight evident rows of punctures, with the intervening intervals slightly convex and bearing irregularly sized tubercles. The humeral angles are sharp and project forward. The study also documents the legs, abdominal ventrites and male genital structures. The aedeagus is slender and almost symmetrical, measuring 1.9 mm long and 0.3 mm wide. Its lanceolate parameres are widest at the base, narrow toward the apex and about 0.6 times as long as the basal pieces.

The authors distinguish A. jianfengensis from A. multidentata using four principal contrasts. The head surface is uneven rather than broad and flat; the frontoclypeal area is more strongly depressed and has a distinct suture; the clypeus is more deeply depressed than the frons; and the eyes are wider than the genae, whereas the genae are as wide as the eyes in A. multidentata. The new species also has sharp, forward-projecting humeral angles rather than the rounded, non-projecting angles of the type species. These observations add images and genital characters to a genus whose original description did not include genital examination or figures of all the traits used to distinguish it from the similar genus Euphloeus Pascoe, 1887.

The species name jianfengensis was derived from the type locality, Jianfeng, which the authors describe as rich in various taxa of tenebrionid beetles. Habitat photographs associated with the paper show Mount Jianfengling, the jungles around Mingfeng Valley and a living individual on rotten wood. The paper records A. jianfengensis from Hainan Island, while its distribution map presents Vietnam and Hainan Island as the known records for Annamosdara.

The description has bounded scope. The female remains unknown, and all conclusions about the new species derive from the four male specimens examined; the study is a morphological and taxonomic analysis rather than an ecological or population investigation. Its findings concern collection locality, anatomy and taxonomic placement. Broader features of the genus, including its biology and access to the type material of A. multidentata, remained unresolved in the published research.

Subject of Research: Morphological taxonomy of the darkling beetle genus Annamosdara in China

Article Title: First record of the little known genus Annamosdara Kaszab, 1941 ( Coleoptera , Tenebrionidae , Stenochiinae , Cnodalonini ) from China, with description of a second species

Article References: Ji, Q.-Y., Bai, X.-L., & Ren, G.-D. (2025). First record of the little known genus Annamosdara Kaszab, 1941 (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae, Stenochiinae, Cnodalonini) from China, with description of a second species. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, 72(1), 21-25. https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.72.145638

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/dez.72.145638

Keywords: Annamosdara, darkling beetles, Tenebrionidae, new species, Hainan Island, Mount Jianfengling, morphological taxonomy, insect taxonomy, aedeagus, zoological description, First, record

The investigation followed collections of diamondback moth larvae made in Guanajuato from 2020 through 2024. These collections had repeatedly yielded an unidentified braconid that was more common than the ichneumonid parasitoid Diadegma insulare at some localities, raising the possibility that the species could have an important role in suppressing the moth. The diamondback moth is a Mediterranean-origin pest distributed around the world and responsible for substantial damage to brassica crops. More than 135 species of its parasitoids have been identified, with Diadegma, Apanteles and Microplitis regarded in some regions as particularly important genera. The research therefore addressed a practical question about natural enemies while also resolving the taxonomic identity of the newly encountered wasp.

For conventional identification, the researchers examined specimens from seven Guanajuato localities and compared them with the detailed original description of A. piceotrichosus, a 2014 revision of 205 Mesoamerican species of Apanteles, and historical records of Apanteles associated with diamondback moth. The Mexican material corresponded closely to published illustrations, measurements and descriptions of body colour, sculpture, antennae, thorax, wings, metasoma and ovipositor sheaths. Particularly useful diagnostic traits included a 15th antennal flagellomere 1.2 to 1.4 times as long as wide, a mostly pale pterostigma with thin brown margins, dark fore and middle femora, a propodeum with a weak areola confined mainly to its posterior half, and ovipositor sheaths slightly shorter to approximately equal in length to the metatibia. The first metasomal tergite narrowed strongly toward its posterior margin, and the second was trapezoidal to subtriangular and nearly smooth apart from a few weak punctures.

These characters separated the Mexican specimens from three other Apanteles species previously recorded as diamondback moth parasitoids in the New World. Apanteles alexanderi has a nearly cubic final antennal segment, a mostly parallel-sided first tergite, a second tergite bearing more evident punctures, yellow fore and middle femora, and ovipositor sheaths substantially longer than the metatibia. A. epinotiae likewise has a cubic to subcubic final antennal segment, a first tergite that is mostly parallel-sided, and a stronger, complete propodeal areola, together with different wing and vein coloration. A. sodalis has a pterostigma that is almost entirely brown apart from a pale basal spot, stronger striae on the second tergite, a subrectangular and parallel-sided second tergite, and a brown tegula. The contrasting combination observed in the Guanajuato material supported identification as A. piceotrichosus. The species had not been included in the Mesoamerican revision because it was then considered restricted to South America.

Molecular data provided a separate line of support. The investigators extracted DNA from 10 Apanteles specimens and amplified the mitochondrial 16S and COI genes and the nuclear 28S ribosomal RNA marker. The resulting amplicons were 451, 383 and 487 base pairs for 16S, COI and 28S, respectively, and each product was sequenced from both strands. A representative COI sequence, assigned to specimen CEAM-Hy-023 and deposited in BOLD, allowed the species to be recognized through DNA barcoding. It differed by 38 to 40 base pairs, or 5.91 to 6.09 percent, from the closest BOLD entries, Apanteles javiercontrerasi and Apanteles carlosguadamuzi. The analysis therefore confirmed that the parasitoid belonged to Apanteles and was consistent with the morphological determination as A. piceotrichosus.

Maximum-likelihood analyses added information about the wasp’s genetic placement, although the principal molecular aim was to determine whether the barcodes alone could characterize the species. The COI analysis included 95 sequences and 322 aligned nucleotide positions, with Agathirsia davidi used as the out-group. Under the Tamura–Nei model, the highest-log-probability tree had a value of −7297.69. A second analysis combined the 16S, 28S and COI sequences into an 865-position dataset containing eight sequences, with Alphomelon sequences serving as the out-group; the highest-log-probability tree in that analysis had a value of −1951.31. The inferred relationships placed the Mexican material near Glyptapanteles merope and Apanteles melpomene, both recorded from Malaysia. These tree-based relationships were treated as additional phylogenetic context rather than evidence that the Mexican population had originated from either Malaysian species.

Laboratory observations showed that A. piceotrichosus behaves as a solitary koinobiont endoparasitoid of diamondback moth larvae. Successful parasitism was recovered from second- and third-instar hosts, while no parasitoids were recovered from fourth-instar larvae. The egg was described as translucent, elongated and hymenopteriform, with a short pedicel. The first-instar parasitoid larva possessed a pair of jaws and an apparent anterior head region wider than the remainder of its body. From the second instar onward, an anal vesicle was visible and enlarged as development proceeded. The investigators considered five larval instars probable, but they did not determine the duration of each individual instar. The study also noted that observations involving first-instar hosts were insufficient to establish whether apparent parasitism in early hosts was successful, leaving the preferred host instar for further testing.

Under laboratory conditions of 25 ± 2 degrees Celsius, 70 percent relative humidity and a 12-hour light-to-dark photoperiod, the mean egg incubation period was 0.92 ± 0.00 days. The larval stage lasted 5.86 ± 0.01 days, and the pupal stage lasted 5.65 ± 0.02 days, giving a mean development time from egg to adult of 12.43 ± 0.01 days. As the parasitized host neared pupation, the parasitoid larva pierced the moth larva’s integument, emerged, consumed its host fluids and then spun its own cocoon. The pupa was exarate and yellowish, whereas newly emerged adults were completely black. These developmental timings were similar to an egg-to-adult period of 12.63 days previously reported for A. machaeralis and a range of 11 to 14 days reported for A. syleptae.

Adult longevity varied sharply according to the food provided. Males and females supplied with a honey solution lived an average of 17.58 ± 0.54 and 16.08 ± 0.19 days, respectively, whereas males and females given only water survived for 2.42 ± 0.51 and 3.08 ± 0.08 days, respectively. These observations establish the basic developmental and survival characteristics of the newly recorded Mexican population, but they do not measure the wasp’s ability to reduce diamondback moth damage in crops. Earlier work in another location reported parasitism of approximately 17 percent, while the broader biological information on A. piceotrichosus remained limited. The authors consequently emphasized that further work is required to determine the species’ role as a field-based natural enemy. The first Mexican and North American record expands the known geographic range of the wasp and provides a baseline for investigating its possible contribution to natural control of a major agricultural pest.

Subject of Research: First North American record and laboratory biology of the diamondback moth parasitoid Apanteles piceotrichosus.

Article Title:  Apanteles piceotrichosus Blanchard ( Hymenoptera , Braconidae ), first record from México, new molecular and biological data

Article References: Rodríguez-Rodríguez, S. E., Fernández-Triana, J. L., Lomeli-Flores, J. R., Martínez-Núñez, M., Rodríguez-Leyva, E., González-Hernández, H., & Bernal, J. S. (2025). Apanteles piceotrichosus Blanchard (Hymenoptera, Braconidae), first record from México, new molecular and biological data. Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 98, 339-353. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.98.138425

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/jhr.98.138425

Keywords: Apanteles piceotrichosus, diamondback moth, parasitoid wasp, Guanajuato, Mexico, DNA barcoding, molecular phylogeny, insect taxonomy, crop pest, natural pest control, Apanteles, piceotrichosus

Its unusual combination of head, pronotal and leg characters distinguishes it from the recognized genera in the tribe Thoradontini. The taxonomic and ecological study followed the species from October 2021 through September 2022 in a subtropical climate zone strongly influenced by the summer monsoon. Researchers photographed and filmed adults and nymphs in their natural habitat, collected specimens by hand and measured them from calibrated macro photographs.

The type series comprises one female holotype and three paratypes—two males and one female—collected on 30 August 2022 at approximately 465 ± 10 metres above sea level. The specimens were deposited at the Annapurna Natural History Museum in Pokhara. Four additional adults, two males and two females, were maintained in a one-litre plastic container and supplied with moss and detritus so their feeding and excrement could be examined.

Several anatomical features support the new taxon’s placement in Thoradontini. Viewed from the front, the vertex, or upper surface of the head, bears u- or v-shaped carinae, while the frontal costa divides high on the compound eye. The triangular vertex narrows toward the front, the eyes lie close to the anterior margin of the pronotum, and paired lateral lobes project from the sides of the body.

The wings reach approximately the same length as the pronotum, whose dorsal surface is nodular. Yet A. itishreea did not fit the established diagnoses of Thoradonta, Loxilobus or Eucriotettix. The authors therefore established Aryalidonta as a new genus, with A. itishreea designated as its type species and the only species currently included.

The generic name combines “Aryal,” honoring the late Nepali writer and satirist Bhairav Aryal, with the Greek word “odón,” meaning “tooth,” a reference to Aryal’s iconic smile. The genus name is feminine. The specific epithet “itishree,” Latinized with the suffix “-a” as itishreea, derives from the Nepali title of one of Aryal’s books and translates as “The End.” The authors also connected it to the tragic end of Aryal’s life and to his belief that an end can be an invitation to a new beginning.

The proposed English common name, Aryal’s Ten Avatar Groundhopper, draws on another of Aryal’s works, Dash Autar, or Ten Avatars, and symbolically reflects the many color forms recorded among individual insects. Adult A. itishreea are small in body length but possess a conspicuously extended pronotum. In the reported measurements, body length was 10.75 mm for the female holotype, 8.39 and 7.97 mm for the male paratypes and 10.59 mm for the female paratype.

Pronotum length ranged from 12.06 to 16.73 mm across the four specimens. The head has oval eyes, a flat vertex with a low median carina, shallow elongated fossulae and paired ocelli positioned slightly below half the compound eye’s height. The frontal costa bifurcates in the upper quarter of eye height.

The macropronotal surface is largely flat and covered with small nodules and larger tubercles, while weakly elevated prozonal carinae converge toward the rear. The wings reach the pronotal apex, and the proximal halves of the middle femora are enlarged, especially in males. The groundhopper displays extensive variation in appearance.

Some adults are nearly uniform in color, whereas others have a contrasting anterior section of the pronotum or differently colored legs. These cryptic patterns resemble the moss, soil, algae and other surfaces occupied by the insects. Nymphs resemble adults in general form and coloration, making them relatively easy to recognize, but they are brachypronotal, lack wings and antegenicular teeth, have more strongly expressed carinae and often show more saturated colors.

Adult structure also varies: the lateral lobes are generally rectangular but may carry short lateral or caudal teeth, and sections of the vertex carinae close to the median carina can differ in development. The expanded proximal portion of the middle femur occurs in both sexes but is much more pronounced in males. The type locality is a steep, red-soil landscape where sal-dominant subtropical forest meets agricultural land.

Sal, Schima wallichii, Castanopsis indica and bamboo provide canopy cover, while ground vegetation includes Chromolaena odorata, Oplismenus undulatifolius, Urena lobata and Murraya koenigii. The Tirtire khola freshwater stream runs through the forest, and the groundhoppers were commonly found along its banks and on desire paths that developed moss and algae during the monsoon. They also occurred on stones around water and on the bunds bordering rice fields.

The population was abundant during the hot, humid period from March to September, when conditions favor moss and algal growth, before the cooler, drier months from October to February. Other pygmy grasshoppers recorded nearby included Coptotettix annandalei, Hebarditettix quadratus, Teredorus carmichaeli, Thoradonta, Criotettix and Xistra angusta. Field observations and captive feeding indicated that A. itishreea consumes moss, algae, lichens and detritus.

Adults and nymphs were photographed feeding on these materials along wet paths, stones and surfaces surrounding water. The four captive insects produced feces in the form of pear-shaped, oval or elongated pellets. The pellets contained apparent undigested plant fibers and had the appearance of mud, suggesting that detritus constitutes a major component of their diet.

The authors noted that the proportion of total plant intake represented by detritus, along with how effectively these insects digest cellulose and hemicellulose, remains uncertain. The study also documented two unusual animal associations. Small wasps were seen singly or in groups gripping the pronotum of the groundhoppers, sometimes remaining attached while the insects jumped or flew.

The wasps appeared to feed on a substance or fluid on the pronotal surface, but the material could not be resolved with a macro lens, and the insects were only tentatively assigned to the family Eulophidae. The authors could not conclusively explain the interaction. Separately, some groundhoppers on rice-field bunds were heavily covered by unidentified mites.

These infestations hindered movement, and affected insects kicked with their forelegs in an apparent attempt to dislodge the mites. Taxonomic uncertainty also remains: available molecular data for Thoradontini cover few genes and a limited sample of taxa, and the study’s placement of Aryalidonta within the tribe was based on morphology. The new genus is therefore a documented starting point for future revision rather than a final resolution of the group’s relationships.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic and ecological description of a new pygmy groundhopper genus and species from Nepal

Article Title: Aryalidonta itishreea , a new genus and species of Thoradontini ( Orthoptera , Tetrigidae ) from Nepal honors the Emperor of Laughter

Article References: Subedi, M., & Kasalo, N. (2023). Aryalidonta itishreea, a new genus and species of Thoradontini (Orthoptera, Tetrigidae) from Nepal honors the Emperor of Laughter. Journal of Orthoptera Research, 32(1), 63-80. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.32.94918

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/jor.32.94918

Keywords: Aryalidonta itishreea, pygmy groundhopper, Tetrigidae, Thoradontini, Nepal, new species, insect taxonomy, Bhairav Aryal, subtropical forest, ecological observations, Aryalidonta, itishreea

Webspinners, the order Embioptera, are among the most peculiar insects alive today. They spin silk from specialized glands in the front legs — a trait unique among insects — and live in galleries woven beneath bark, in leaf litter, and in humid canopy niches. The family Ptilocerembiidae, erected by Miller and Edgerly in 2012 after molecular phylogenetic analysis recovered the genus Ptilocerembia as a distinct lineage separate from Notoligotomidae, was originally described from Indonesia, with the type species Ptilocerembia roepkei Friederichs, 1923. Until now, all known species of this monogeneric family came from Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand, with four additional species described from Thailand by Poolprasert and Edgerly in 2014. The discovery of a Chinese representative therefore fills a significant biogeographic gap and validates a prediction made by entomologist Ross as far back as 2007, who suspected that the montane regions of northern Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and southwestern China harbor undiscovered embiopteran taxa.

The new species is named after its collector, Dr. Lu Qiu of Mianyang, Sichuan. Morphologically, the male of P. qiului is about 15 millimeters long, pale to brown in color, with antennae of at least 26 segments bearing long erect setae and pale distal segments. The head capsule is dark brown, nearly 1.5 times longer than wide, with reticular pigmentation on the posterior third. The wings are pale brown with longitudinal stripes, and the anterior media vein (MA) is forked subbasally in all wings — a diagnostic feature of the genus. The hind basitarsus carries dense ventral setae and a single papilla. The body is deposited in the Insect Collection of Jiangsu University of Science and Technology in Zhenjiang, with a holotype and one paratype from the same collection event.

What truly separates P. qiului from its five known congeners is the elaborate architecture of the male terminalia, the genital structures that entomologists use as species-level fingerprints in webspinners. The tenth abdominal tergite is completely cleft, with hemitergites separated basally. The left hemitergal process (10LP) is constricted basally with a greatly projected left margin, while the right hemitergal process (10RP) is broad and subquadrate. The medial flap (MF) carries a long sickle-shaped epiproct-like hook and a raised nodule. The hypandrium process (HP) is nearly as long as the hypandrium itself, with a denticulate ridge on the apical half of the left margin — a feature that is relatively short and simple in all other described species. The submentum, a ventral head sclerite, has a truncate anterior margin rather than the concave margin seen in its closest relative, P. catherinae. These combinations of characters, examined under a stereomicroscope and photographed with a Canon EOS 5DSR camera and MP-E 65 mm macro lens, clearly distinguish the Chinese specimens from the four Thai species and the Indonesian P. roepkei.

To complement the morphological evidence, the team sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome from a single leg of the holotype using a paired-end Illumina library on the HiSeq X platform, yielding 1.56 gigabases of clean data. The mitogenome was assembled independently with two pipelines, GETORGANELLE v1.7.4 and MITOZ v3.6, whose consistency was confirmed by manual checking before deposition in GenBank under accession number PX232380. The resulting circular molecule is 15,443 base pairs long — slightly smaller than other reported webspinner mitogenomes, which typically range from about 15.7 to 17.3 kilobases — and comprises 13 protein-coding genes, 20 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes, and the A+T-rich control region. Base composition is strongly A+T-biased, with adenine at 39.2% and thymine at 25.1%, a pattern typical of insect mitochondrial genomes.

The mitogenome holds two genuine surprises. First, two tRNA genes — tRNA-Val (trnV) and tRNA-Ser(UGA) (trnS2) — were not detected in the assembly, a feature not seen in any other sequenced embiopteran mitogenome. The authors caution that missing tRNAs can sometimes result from annotation or sequencing limitations rather than true gene loss, so these absences should be interpreted cautiously until confirmed by additional data. Second, and more remarkably, the team detected approximately 5.4 tandem repeat units in the intergenic region between tRNA-Ile and tRNA-Gln, confirmed by Tandem Repeats Finder analysis. Tandem repeats are common in the control region of many insect mitogenomes, but their presence in this non-control intergenic spacer has never been reported in other webspinner mitogenomes and suggests lineage-specific evolution. The functional significance remains unclear — the repeats could be neutral structural features or potentially involved in replication dynamics — but they could serve as genetic markers if conserved across populations.

Analysis of selective pressure across all 13 protein-coding genes, comparing the new species against the outgroup Phasmotaenia lanyuhensis, yielded Ka/Ks values below 1.0 for every gene, indicating that all protein-coding genes evolve under purifying selection. COX1 shows the lowest Ka/Ks ratio and therefore the highest conservation, supporting its robustness as a DNA barcode marker, while ATP8 shows a relatively elevated rate — though still under 1 — suggesting relaxed constraint on this ATP synthase gene. This pattern, with COX1 as the slowest-evolving mitochondrial gene and ATP8 among the fastest, is consistent with findings from other Embioptera. Most protein-coding genes use standard invertebrate start codons (ATA, ATG, ATT) and terminate with TAA, while six genes end with an incomplete stop codon presumed to be completed by post-transcriptional polyadenylation. Relative synonymous codon usage analysis reveals a strong bias toward A/T-ending codons, with the most frequent codons encoding serine (UCU, UCA) and threonine (ACC).

The molecular species delimitation results are striking. The COX1 barcode of P. qiului was compared against all six available Ptilocerembia sequences from GenBank, and pairwise K2P genetic distances between the new species and its congeners ranged from 12.6% to 17.6% — far exceeding the widely adopted ~2% intraspecific thresholds used in webspinners and other insects. The smallest distance among any congeners was 4.2%, between P. catherinae and P. thaidina. In phylogenetic trees built with Bayesian inference, Neighbor-Joining, and Maximum Likelihood methods, P. qiului grouped with two unnamed Ptilocerembia specimens sequenced by Miller and colleagues in 2012 rather than with any formally described species, supported by a posterior probability of 0.82 in the Bayesian tree and bootstrap values of 66 and 52 in the Neighbor-Joining and Maximum Likelihood trees respectively. This congruence between morphology and genetics provides strong evidence that the Chinese specimens represent a distinct new species — and hints that the unnamed specimens from the 2012 study might themselves represent additional undescribed species.

The discovery carries substantial biogeographic weight. Although this record is not the northernmost known occurrence of the genus — Myanmar already hosted species of Ptilocerembia — it extends the family’s boundary into Yunnan and underscores the province’s significance as a biodiversity hotspot. The type locality sits in the Ailao Mountain region, a transitional boundary between the Yungui Plateau and the Hengduan Mountains that serves as a climatic divide between the Pacific Southeast Monsoon and the Indian Ocean Southwest Monsoon systems. The surrounding mid-elevation moist evergreen broad-leaved forests, dominated by Fagaceae, Theaceae, Lauraceae, and Magnoliaceae with rich epiphytes and lianas, create stable micro-habitats such as bark crevices, leaf-litter zones, and humid canopy niches favorable for webspinners. Given the pronounced vertical climate stratification, the new species may occupy a narrow elevational range with specific humidity and canopy cover conditions, and future field studies targeting mid-montane evergreen forest corridors across the Indochina–Yunnan region may reveal a broader distribution of the genus across similar habitats.

Only six species of Ptilocerembia are currently described worldwide, and the authors argue that the genus’s diversity is seriously underestimated. Ross suspected as early as 1963 that a complex of many species exists across the region, and the new findings confirm that even putative colonies in well-surveyed areas can yield new taxa. The study is based on male specimens from a single locality, and no females are yet known for the species; more fieldwork is needed to collect females and additional populations to study potential intraspecific variation and female morphology. The phylogenetic analysis relied solely on COX1, useful for species delimitation but limited for resolving deeper relationships, so future work should incorporate nuclear markers, transcriptomes, and full mitogenomes of multiple species to build a more comprehensive phylogeny of Ptilocerembiidae and Embioptera. Multi-gene phylogenomics could test the monophyly of Ptilocerembiidae and clarify its position relative to other families. As taxonomic work progresses, integrating classical morphology, DNA barcoding, and genomic data will be essential to achieve a robust classification of Embioptera and to document the evolutionary history of this silk-spinning insect order — a reminder that even in well-studied regions, hidden diversity awaits discovery.

Subject of Research: First record of the family Ptilocerembiidae (Insecta, Embioptera) from China, with morphological and molecular characterization of a new species

Article Title: First record of the family Ptilocerembiidae ( Insecta , Embioptera ) from China, with morphological and molecular characterization of a new species

Article References: Chen, Z.-T., Xiong, Y., & Jiang, C. (2025). First record of the family Ptilocerembiidae (Insecta, Embioptera) from China, with morphological and molecular characterization of a new species. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, 72(2), 569-579. https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.72.170313

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/dez.72.170313

Keywords: First, record, family, Ptilocerembiidae, Insecta, Embioptera, China, morphological, molecular, characterization, species, scientific research

Snakeflies are, in many ways, the quiet underdogs of the insect world. With only 252 valid species currently recognized worldwide, Raphidioptera is the smallest order of the Holometabola, the vast group of insects that undergo complete metamorphosis and includes butterflies, beetles, bees, and flies. Of those 252 species, 206 belong to the family Raphidiidae and 46 to the family Inocelliidae. Despite their modest diversity, snakeflies hold a special place in evolutionary studies because they retain many primitive features, including a long, flexible neck-like prothorax that allows the head to be raised in a striking, snake-like posture. Adults are agile predators, and larvae develop under tree bark, feeding on small arthropods in the crevices of forest ecosystems.

The scientific value of the Vienna collection lies not merely in its size but in its composition. Of the 75 species and subspecies represented by type specimens, 68 belong to the family Raphidiidae and seven to the family Inocelliidae. The overwhelming majority of these species were described by Horst Aspöck, Ulrike Aspöck, and Hubert Rausch, three Austrian researchers whose decades of close cooperation with the museum transformed the study of snakeflies. Ulrike Aspöck served as curator of the collection from 1986 to 2006, a period during which the museum’s holdings grew substantially. The catalogue records that the museum’s entire Raphidioptera collection contains 168 species and subspecies, meaning that nearly half are anchored by type material, the physical specimens upon which the original scientific descriptions of those species were based.

Type specimens are the bedrock of biological nomenclature. When a scientist formally describes a new species, the law of priority requires that a single physical specimen, the holotype, be designated as the definitive reference for that name. Additional specimens used in the original description, known as paratypes, allotypes, and paratypoids, provide supporting evidence and often represent the opposite sex or geographic variants. Without these specimens, species names become ambiguous, and taxonomists cannot reliably determine which organisms a name applies to. The Vienna catalogue meticulously documents each type specimen, recording the original description’s page number, the type locality, and the current taxonomic status of every species, information that is essential for future researchers attempting to resolve nomenclatural disputes.

The catalogue’s technical rigor is evident in its treatment of individual specimens. Each entry documents the precise labels attached to the specimen, distinguishing between printed labels, handwritten text, and remarks by the original authors. Many specimens carry macerated genital segments stored in glycerine in small glass vials pinned to the corresponding insect, a preparation technique that allows researchers to examine the taxonomically critical reproductive structures without destroying the specimen. The catalogue also notes whether material is dried and pinned or preserved in 75 percent ethanol, and whether specimens belong to the main collection or to the collection of Herbert Hölzel, which came to the museum in 2010.

Among the most historically significant specimens in the collection are those with provenance stretching back to the nineteenth century. The lectotype of Raphidia ratzeburgi, described by Brauer in 1876, carries labels indicating its origin in Austria, with the original description later specifying Styria as the more precise type locality. The holotype of Raphidia phoenicia, described in 1964, bears a label reading Led. Cyp. b. 854, suggesting a possible origin on Cyprus, though the authors note that the provenance remains unresolved. The holotype of Raphidia exul, also described in 1964, carries no type locality at all, a situation the original authors acknowledged with regret, noting that they had initially believed the specimen came from Parnassus in Greece based on its label, but that the later discovery of a female in the same handwriting suggested a possible origin near the Taurus mountains, a question that must remain undecided.

The catalogue also reveals the geographic breadth of the research that produced these types. Type localities span from Morocco’s High Atlas mountains, where the holotype of Africoraphidia spilonota was collected in 1933, to Mexico’s Sierra de Miahuatlán, where the holotype of Alena (Aztekoraphidia) infundibulata was found in 1991. Kyrgyzstan emerges as a particularly rich source, with numerous species described from the Talasskiy Alatau, the Chatkal range, and the Fergana range, reflecting intensive field expeditions conducted by the Aspöck team in the 1990s. Greece, Türkiye, and Italy are also well represented, with type localities ranging from Crete’s Lefka Ori to Calabria’s Aspromonte. The catalogue documents specimens collected by dozens of different researchers over more than a century, including early expeditions by Krüper in Greece in the 1860s and by Mann in the Balkans in the 1860s and 1870s.

Not every entry in the catalogue is a success story. The type status of one specimen of Ophiopsis mediterranea, marked as a type in the collection, could not be confirmed, as the specimen is not listed in the original description. Two type specimens of Mongoloraphidia (Hissaroraphidia) karatauica, described in 1995, are missing from the museum, having been transferred to the Aspöck collection but not returned by the time the publication was completed. These gaps, while unfortunate, are themselves scientifically valuable, as they alert future researchers to the need for caution when citing these specimens and may prompt renewed efforts to locate the missing material.

The foundation for the present catalogue was laid in 2006 and 2007, when a diploma thesis by the first author of the publication recorded the type material of Neuropterida in the museum’s main collection for the first time. That preliminary work, combined with decades of cooperation between the museum and the Aspöck research group, has now culminated in a definitive reference that will serve taxonomists, evolutionary biologists, and conservation scientists for generations. As the smallest order of the Holometabola, snakeflies may never attract the popular attention given to butterflies or beetles, but the Vienna collection demonstrates that even the most modest insect groups can generate a scientific legacy of extraordinary depth, one pinned specimen at a time.

Subject of Research: Type catalogue of Raphidioptera specimens at the Natural History Museum Vienna

Article Title: Type specimens of Neuropterida ( Insecta ) in the Natural History Museum Vienna. I. Raphidioptera

Article References: Kleewein, A., Randolf, S., Bruckner, H., & Aspöck, U. (2025). Type specimens of Neuropterida (Insecta) in the Natural History Museum Vienna. I. Raphidioptera. Annals of the Natural History Museum Vienna, 126, 111-135. https://doi.org/10.3897/anhmw.171465

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/anhmw.171465

Keywords: snakeflies, Raphidioptera, type specimens, Natural History Museum Vienna, taxonomy, Neuropterida, Type, specimens, Insecta, Natural, History, Museum

The six newcomers are Stigmus dentiserratus, S. nullirugatus, S. rugibrevis, S. rugilongus, S. sulcipervius and S. tibisulcatus. Each was identified on the basis of a distinctive suite of anatomical characters, including features of the mesopleuron and propodeum on the thorax, the petiole that joins the thorax to the abdomen, and the venation of the hind wing. All six are described in detail from female specimens, and in the case of S. rugilongus, the male is known as well, allowing the researchers to illustrate its genitalia, which in wasps often provide decisive evidence for species boundaries.

The type specimens tell a story of patient fieldwork across remarkably varied landscapes. The holotype of S. dentiserratus was collected in 2009 at 2,210 metres in the Liupan Mountains of Ningxia, in north-central China. Three other species come from Yunnan Province: S. nullirugatus from Bulang Mountain near Jinghong, S. rugibrevis from the Ailaoshan Ecological Station at nearly 2,450 metres, and S. rugilongus from alpine sites above 3,500 metres in Shangri-La City, on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. S. sulcipervius was found in Huping Mountain in Hunan, while S. tibisulcatus turned out to be the most widespread of the new species, with specimens from Yunnan and Hainan, an island in the tropical south.

What makes these wasps interesting beyond their novelty is their natural history. Stigmus species are small solitary hunters whose larvae feed on aphids. Females construct nests in decaying wood or in abandoned burrows made by beetles, arranging their brood cells in a linear series inside the tunnel. Adults frequently visit flowers, making them part-time pollinators as well as predators. According to earlier studies cited in the paper, a single female can capture roughly sixty aphids to provision her offspring, a habit that gives these inconspicuous insects a meaningful role in suppressing one of the world’s most notorious agricultural pests.

Distinguishing species within Stigmus is a task that demands microscopic precision, and the new paper is a masterclass in the method. The authors examined specimens under an Olympus stereomicroscope with an ocular micrometer, taking measurements at eight times magnification, and captured high-resolution images with a digital microscope system. Their descriptions rely on an extensive array of standardised measurements, from head width and eye dimensions to the lengths of the scape, pedicel and flagellomeres of the antenna, the hind femur and hind tibia, and the proportions of the petiole. These ratios allow other researchers to compare specimens objectively rather than relying on vague impressions of similarity.

The diagnostic characters themselves are wonderfully specific. Stigmus dentiserratus, as its name suggests, is named for the four pointed teeth along the free margin of its clypeus, a facial feature that sets it apart from its closest relative, S. solskyi, which has only two. S. tibisulcatus bears a conspicuous short longitudinal groove on the outer surface of the hind tibia, a feature never before recorded in the genus. S. sulcipervius is defined by its notauli, the paired grooves on the upper surface of the thorax, which run the entire length of the scutum, whereas in related species they are short. The names of the other species refer to the sculpture of the petiole: S. rugilongus carries a strong, long longitudinal ruga, and S. rugibrevis a short one.

Perhaps the most useful contribution for future researchers is the updated identification key, now illustrated with photographs and covering all 22 Chinese species. Keys like this work as a series of either-or questions, guiding the user through contrasts in clypeal shape, the completeness of the occipital carina at the back of the head, the pattern of rugae on the petiole, and a subtle but critical character of wing venation: whether the media vein of the hind wing diverges from the point cu-a or beyond it. Such dichotomous keys are the taxonomist’s equivalent of a flowchart, and an illustrated, up-to-date version for an entire national fauna is a rare and valuable resource.

The study also situates Stigmus in a broader biogeographical picture. The genus, established by Panzer in 1804 with Stigmus pendulus as its type species, currently comprises 35 recognised species and four subspecies distributed almost worldwide, although it is conspicuously absent from the Afrotropical and Australasian regions. The Northern Hemisphere holds most of the diversity: ten species and two subspecies in the Nearctic, ten in the Palaearctic, eleven species and two subspecies in the Oriental region, and two in the Neotropics. Within China, the newly expanded tally of 22 species includes eleven confined to the Oriental region, four to the Palaearctic, and one that spans both, reflecting the country’s position at the intersection of these great zoogeographical realms.

One of the most interesting close relatives in the classification is Carinostigmus, a genus so similar in morphology that it was originally treated as a subgenus of Stigmus before being elevated to full generic status by Bohart and Menke in 1976 on the basis of phylogenetic analysis of morphological data. Distinguishing the two genera depends on features documented in a prior study by the same team. A hallmark of Stigmus itself is a small opaque area between the eye and the ocellar triangle, a character that separates it from other genera within the subfamily Pemphredoninae. Such fine anatomical distinctions underscore how much diversity can hide within outwardly similar lineages of small insects.

The authors are candid about the limits of a purely morphological approach. Molecular data for Stigmus remain very scarce, which means that species are currently delineated almost entirely on anatomy, a method that risks conflating variation within a species with genuine differences between species. They argue that robust species boundaries can only be established by integrating multiple datasets, and they call for genetic barcoding of all known species, systematic surveys in under-sampled provinces such as Sichuan and Chongqing, and biogeographical modelling to reconstruct the evolution, origin and dispersal history of the genus. They also advocate conservation biology research on the role these aphid-hunting wasps play in natural pest regulation.

For a genus of wasps barely a few millimetres long, Stigmus is having a moment. Six new species in a single paper, an illustrated key to an entire national fauna, and a research agenda that spans taxonomy, genetics and conservation together mark a substantial leap in what science knows about these insects. The next time a gardener notices aphid colonies failing to explode out of control, the quiet work of a female Stigmus, stocking a tunnel in a rotten branch with paralysed prey, may be part of the reason. Discoveries like these are a reminder that biodiversity science is far from finished, and that some of its most rewarding frontiers are measured in millimetres.

Subject of Research: Taxonomy and diversity of predatory Stigmus wasps (Hymenoptera, Crabronidae) in China

Article Title: Six new species of Stigmus ( Hymenoptera , Crabronidae ) from China, with an updated key to all Chinese species

Article References: Li, J., Li, Q., & Ma, L. (2026). Six new species of Stigmus (Hymenoptera, Crabronidae) from China, with an updated key to all Chinese species. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, 73(2), 435-451. https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.73.188761

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/dez.73.188761

Keywords: Stigmus, Crabronidae, Hymenoptera, new species, China, taxonomy, wasps, aphid predators, entomology, biodiversity, Yunnan, identification key

Leafhoppers are among the most species-rich groups of plant-feeding insects on Earth, and the tribe Agalliini, to which the new genus belongs, comprises compact, wedge-shaped hoppers found on every continent. These insects feed by piercing plant tissues with needle-like mouthparts and sucking sap, and in the Oriental Region their host preferences are remarkably broad: documented records span monocotyledonous plants from a single plant family and dicotyledonous hosts spread across nineteen families and forty-one species. That ecological breadth makes agalliines important subjects for studying how plant-feeding insects diversify, and it also means that some species have the potential to become crop pests when their host plants overlap with agriculture.

The story of Dianagallia began with recently collected material from Yunnan. Specimens gathered in the field bore a striking resemblance to Igerna gladiota, a species described in 2021 from the Oriental Region, both in their general body form and in the architecture of their male genital structures, which serve as the primary yardstick for distinguishing leafhopper species. But when the researchers subjected the material to detailed morphological comparison against the defining characters of Igerna and its closest relatives, a different picture emerged. The Yunnan insects, it turned out, represented a separate generic lineage, warranting the formal establishment of a new genus to house both the new species and the previously described one.

The new genus is named Dianagallia, a combination that carries a small piece of Chinese geography in its syllables. Dian is the traditional single-character abbreviation for Yunnan Province, while the suffix -agallia nods to Agallia, the type genus of the tribe Agalliini, established all the way back in 1833. The name is feminine, as convention requires, and it anchors the new lineage firmly in both place and phylogeny. The type species, upon which the genus definition rests, is the newly described Dianagallia yunnanica, whose species epithet likewise honors the province where the type material was collected.

What makes Dianagallia diagnosable is a suite of anatomical characters that, taken together, separate it cleanly from its neighbors. The head bears two large, round black spots on the vertex, positioned closer to each other than to the compound eyes, and the ocelli, the simple eyes that many insects carry between their compound ones, sit closer to the eyes than to each other. The forewings lack accessory cross veins and display the standard complement of three ante-apical and four apical cells, with the inner ante-apical cell open at its posterior end. On the hind legs, the pattern of stout macrosetae follows a specific numerical formula, and the hind basitarsus carries a single platella in its distal transverse row, details that matter enormously to taxonomists working at this scale.

The male genitalia provide the most decisive evidence. The pygofer, a protective structure flanking the genital capsule, carries a single long, spine-like and heavily sclerotised process arising from its posterior margin and directed dorsally. The anal collar, a ring-like structure around the anus, is well developed, with each lateral branch bearing an elongate apical process. The aedeagus, the intromittent organ whose shape is often the single most important character in leafhopper classification, is symmetrical, with a tubular shaft that curves slightly upward and terminates in two pairs of elongate, lamellate processes. The connective, a skeletal element linking the aedeagus to the rest of the genital apparatus, is T-shaped with lateral arms shorter than its stem. Each of these features diverges from the corresponding condition in related genera.

Those divergences are precisely what justified the new genus. Dianagallia runs closest to Austroagallia in the existing identification key to Oriental Agalliini, but Austroagallia has ocelli distinctly closer to each other than to the eyes, a strongly asymmetrical aedeagus, and a different configuration of the dorsal apodeme and pre-atrium. Ianagallia, another superficially similar genus, possesses a robust, asymmetrically bifurcate pre-atrial process and a highly modified aedeagal architecture that Dianagallia lacks. And Igerna itself, the genus in which one of the new species had been housed, differs in subtle but consistent ways: in Igerna the ocelli are slightly closer to each other than to the eyes, the anal collar is simple or reduced rather than strongly sclerotised with an elongate process, the connective’s lateral arms are roughly equal in length to the stem, and the aedeagal shaft typically curves downward with its base sunk into the dorsal apodeme. In taxonomy, such consistent differences in hard anatomical structures are the currency of generic boundaries.

The new species itself, Dianagallia yunnanica, is a small insect, with males measuring between roughly 3.6 and 3.7 millimeters in body length and females slightly larger at up to about 4.1 millimeters. Its face is yellow-brown, marked with a reversed Y-shaped dark brown macula between the ocelli and scattered smaller markings around them, while the pronotum carries a broad median longitudinal band flanked by irregular maculae. The holotype, a single male specimen that permanently defines the species, was collected on 7 June 2021 in the Nangunhe National Natural Reserve in Cangyuan County, Lincang, by B. Zhang, and is deposited along with the paratypes at Inner Mongolia Normal University. Additional paratypes came from Mount Leigongshan in neighboring Guizhou Province, extending the known range of the species across provincial boundaries.

Distinguishing D. yunnanica from its congener D. gladiota required attention to fine structural detail. The male pygofer lobe of the new species bears a rectangular projection on its caudodorsal margin, where D. gladiota’s is rounded. The anal collar process carries a small sub-basal spur that is absent in D. gladiota. And the inner apical process of the aedeagal shaft is approximately two-thirds the length of the outer process, whereas in D. gladiota it measures no more than half. The female genitalia, described here in detail for the new species, show slightly dorsally curved first and second valvulae, with oblique rows of scale-like processes on the distal half of the first valvula’s shaft and small teeth along the apical half of the second valvula’s dorsal margin, structures that assist in egg-laying and offer further species-level characters.

The second resident of the new genus arrived by combination rather than description. Dianagallia gladiota, originally named Igerna gladiota by Meshram and Rai in 2021, has been formally transferred into Dianagallia on the strength of the morphological evidence, even though no physical material of that species could be examined for the present study. The original description and illustrations were deemed adequate to support the move, a reminder that in taxonomy, published figures and careful documentation can carry real weight long after a paper appears. Together, the two species give the new genus a distribution spanning the Oriental Region, and they highlight a broader truth about biodiversity science: even in well-studied insect groups, the frontier of discovery runs through museum drawers and mountain reserves alike, waiting for whoever looks closely enough at the fine print of an insect’s anatomy.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic description of a new genus and species of agalliine leafhoppers from the Oriental Region

Article Title: A new genus of agalliine leafhoppers ( Hemiptera , Cicadellidae , Megophthalminae ) from the Oriental Region, with description of a new species and proposal of a new combination

Article References: Zhang, B., Yu, Y., & Webb, M. D. (2026). A new genus of agalliine leafhoppers (Hemiptera, Cicadellidae, Megophthalminae) from the Oriental Region, with description of a new species and proposal of a new combination. Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, 73(2), 525-529. https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.73.195086

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/dez.73.195086

Keywords: leafhoppers, Dianagallia, Hemiptera, Cicadellidae, Megophthalminae, Agalliini, new genus, new species, Yunnan, China, taxonomy, Oriental Region

Triozidae belongs to the superfamily Psylloidea, the jumping plant lice, a lineage of small sap-sucking hemipterans that feed on an enormous range of host plants. Several psyllids are notorious agricultural pests, and even species that are not direct crop pests can act as vectors of plant pathogens or cause damage through the galls they induce. Despite their ecological and economic significance, Triozidae has remained poorly represented in mitochondrial genomic databases, and the evolutionary relationships among its genera have never been fully resolved. Mitochondrial genomes, compact and maternally inherited, are among the most widely used tools for untangling insect phylogeny, which made the scarcity of Triozidae mitogenomes a conspicuous gap in insect genomics.

The newly sequenced Bactericera gobica mitogenome is 14,865 base pairs long and contains the standard set of 37 mitochondrial genes: 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. Its gene arrangement follows the typical insect pattern, and the genome displays a strong adenine-thymine bias, with AT content reaching 72.1 percent, a hallmark of insect mitochondrial DNA. By integrating this genome with nearly all previously published Triozidae mitogenomes, the researchers constructed a dataset that allows comparative analyses at a scale previously impossible for the family, covering genome architecture, nucleotide composition, codon usage, and gene order.

The comparative analysis revealed a strikingly conservative genomic architecture across the family. Gene order is highly conserved among Triozidae species, and the lengths of the protein-coding genes show little variation from one species to another. Where genomes do differ in size, the variation is concentrated almost entirely in the hypervariable control region, the non-coding stretch of the mitochondrial genome that contains the origin of replication and transcription. This pattern, in which a single labile region accounts for most of the length differences among otherwise stable genomes, mirrors findings from many other insect groups and underscores the control region’s role as the principal arena of mitochondrial genome size evolution.

Codon usage within the protein-coding genes also yielded a clear signal. The team found that codon usage bias was significantly correlated with nucleotide composition across the mitogenomes, indicating that mutational pressure, rather than natural selection acting on translational efficiency, is the primary driver of codon preference in Triozidae mitochondria. In other words, the skewed AT-rich composition of the genome shapes which synonymous codons are favored, a conclusion consistent with the compositional forces known to dominate mitochondrial evolution in insects. Such results matter for downstream phylogenetic work, because compositional bias can mislead tree-building methods if it is not modeled appropriately.

The phylogenetic analyses, based on the 13 protein-coding genes and the 2 ribosomal RNA genes, produced a well-resolved picture of relationships within the family. The analyses strongly supported the monophyly of Triozidae as a whole, confirming that the family represents a single evolutionary lineage. Within it, three genera emerged as robust, coherent units: Bactericera, Egeirotrioza, and Pariaconus were each recovered as monophyletic with strong statistical support. These results provide reassurance that much of the family’s generic framework rests on genuine evolutionary boundaries rather than superficial morphological resemblance.

The exception is the genus Trioza itself. Rather than forming a single clade, species assigned to Trioza were distributed across multiple distinct lineages scattered through the family tree, a textbook case of polyphyly. This means that the morphological characters traditionally used to define Trioza have converged or been retained across unrelated lineages, and that the genus as currently circumscribed mixes species that are not each other’s closest relatives. The authors argue that this confirmed polyphyly highlights the urgent need for taxonomic revision within Triozidae, a process that will likely involve splitting the genus and redefining its boundaries using both molecular and morphological evidence.

Beyond relationships, the study reached back in time. Divergence time estimation, calibrated within the phylogenetic framework, suggested that Triozidae originated in the later Paleogene, the epoch that followed the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs and saw the rise of modern plant lineages. The family’s major diversification, however, came much later, during the early to mid-Miocene, a period characterized by significant global cooling, the expansion of grasslands, and the diversification of many flowering plant lineages. That timing hints at a possible link between the evolutionary radiation of these plant lice and the ecological transformations of the Miocene, although testing such associations will require denser sampling and richer host-plant data.

The practical implications extend beyond pure systematics. A robust molecular framework for Triozidae is a prerequisite for identifying pest species accurately, tracing the spread of psyllid-borne plant pathogens, and designing targeted management strategies. Because psyllids are often intercepted in trade and quarantine, reliable DNA-based identification grounded in a sound phylogeny can directly support biosecurity. The expanded mitogenomic resource assembled in this study gives researchers a reference set against which new specimens and new species can be rapidly placed, and it establishes a baseline for future studies incorporating whole mitochondrial genomes, nuclear markers, or even full genome-scale datasets.

The work was carried out by Jiangtao Feng, Yanting Yang, Jie Fan, Jia He, Luochong Wang, Fan Song, and Weidong Huang, with contributions from institutions including China Agricultural University in Beijing and the Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Science, and was supported by the Key Research and Development Program Project of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. As the authors conclude, the study offers comprehensive insights into the mitochondrial genomic architecture and evolutionary history of Triozidae, confirms that one of its flagship genera is an artificial assemblage, and lays the groundwork for a deeper understanding of psyllid evolution. For a family of insects that has flown under the genomic radar for so long, the message is clear: their family tree is due for a thorough rewrite.

Subject of Research: Mitochondrial genomics and phylogenetics of the jumping plant louse family Triozidae

Article Title: Exploring the mitogenomics of Triozidae (Hemiptera: Psylloidea): comparative analysis and phylogenomics

Article References: Feng, J., Yang, Y., Fan, J., He, J., Wang, L., Song, F., & Huang, W. (2026). Exploring the mitogenomics of Triozidae (Hemiptera: Psylloidea): comparative analysis and phylogenomics. BMC Genomics. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-026-13337-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12864-026-13337-y

Keywords: Triozidae, mitochondrial genome, phylogenetics, Bactericera gobica, Trioza polyphyly, Psylloidea, divergence time estimation, codon usage bias, BMC Genomics, insect taxonomy, Miocene diversification, plant lice