The researchers examined dried specimens using stereomicroscopy and an ocular micrometer. Body length was measured from the apex of the vertex to the tip of the forewing, while wing venation and external anatomy were described using established morphological terminology. Male genital segments were removed, macerated in 10% sodium hydroxide and transferred to glycerine jelly for examination and illustration.

Colour photographs of adult habitus were taken with imaging systems, and the dissected terminalia were drawn under a stereomicroscope. The resulting line drawings were scanned and assembled digitally. The study was taxonomic and descriptive rather than an ecological experiment, and its conclusions were based on morphology, collection records and the available host-plant observations.

V. deflecta was represented by five males collected in Libo in 2011 and 2015. The species measured 5.48–6.34 mm in body length, including the forewing, and 4.53–5.43 mm in forewing length. Its name refers to the male anal tube, which is distinctly inclined to the left. The authors distinguished it from V. asymmetrica using the asymmetrical anal tube and differences in the phallic complex.

V. fodingshanensis was described from four males collected at Fodingshan National Nature Reserve in 2025. Body length, including the forewing, ranged from 5.33 to 5.40 mm, while forewing length ranged from 4.40 to 4.66 mm. Its name refers to the type locality. The authors compared it with V. nigra and identified differences involving the male pygofer, gonostyli and periandrium.

V. furcata was described from four males collected in Guizhou between 2012 and 2019. The specimens measured 4.45–4.91 mm in body length, including the forewing, and 3.82–4.29 mm in forewing length. The name refers to a forked, Y-shaped process on the male periandrium. The paper distinguished the species from V. umbripennis through features of the male terminalia.

All three new species were reported from bamboo. V. deflecta and V. fodingshanensis were associated with Bambusa emeiensis, while the host of V. furcata was identified only as Bambusa sp. The authors noted that host records for Vekunta remain scarce and that bamboo-associated and other-host specimens share the genus’s diagnostic characters, without showing clear morphological divergence.

These observations support the possibility that bamboo is an important host plant for Vekunta, but they do not establish that all species in the genus feed exclusively on bamboo. The researchers emphasized that host-associated morphological differences cannot be ruled out, that some species may have broader host ranges, and that further field surveys and more accurate host-association data are needed.

The study also updated the Chinese species list for Vekunta and provided a key to Chinese males based mainly on male terminalia. Five species known only from females were excluded from the key. The authors placed the new species in the genus Vekunta within the tribe Cenchreini, where fused RP and MP1+2 forewing veins help distinguish it from the externally similar Chinese genus Goneokara.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic description of three new Vekunta planthopper species from Guizhou, China

Article Title: Three bamboo-feeding new species of the genus Vekunta Distant ( Hemiptera , Fulgoromorpha , Derbidae ) from Guizhou Province, China

Article References: Yao, X., Sui, Y.-J., Lv, S.-S., Long, J.-K., Chang, Z.-M., Li, Z.-Z., Chen, X.-S., & Yang, L. (2026). Three bamboo-feeding new species of the genus Vekunta Distant (Hemiptera, Fulgoromorpha, Derbidae) from Guizhou Province, China. ZooKeys, 1289, 335-351. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1289.186813

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1289.186813

Keywords: Vekunta, planthoppers, Derbidae, taxonomy, morphology, Guizhou, China, bamboo-associated insects, species description, Three, bamboo-feeding, species

The researchers followed the classification of Emeljanov and Shcherbakov (2025), which recognizes Pentastirinae as a subfamily containing Pentastirini and Mnemosynini. The study focused on the Oriental fauna, where the generic placement of numerous planthoppers remains uncertain and several genera have previously been treated as paraphyletic.

External anatomy, wing venation, leg structure and male and female terminalia were examined with a stereomicroscope and photographic equipment. Card-mounted dry specimens were used, and selected abdomens were removed, macerated in 10% potassium hydroxide, rinsed and preserved in glycerol. Drawings, specimen photographs and a distribution map documented the diagnostic structures and reported localities.

The new genus Pteroprocessus includes Pteroprocessus binghami, transferred from Indolipa, and two newly described species, Pteroprocessus nabhitabhatai and Pteroprocessus obscurinervis. Its diagnosis combines wing venation, body proportions, hind-leg form and male genitalia, including cane-shaped genital styles, a narrow asymmetric pygofer and a coiled aedeagal flagellum.

P. nabhitabhatai was described from six males and one female collected in Trang Province, Thailand. Males measured 7.2–7.5 mm and the female measured 8.5 mm. P. obscurinervis was described from two males collected in Yunnan Province, China, each measuring 8.5–8.7 mm. Its name refers to the species’ dark wing venation, while the female remains unknown.

The placement of P. binghami in Pteroprocessus is provisional. The species was described from Rangoon, Myanmar, from a single female, and no male material from the type locality is known. The authors therefore limited comparisons to external characters, female terminalia and wing markings and stated that examination of male specimens from the type locality would be needed to resolve its relationship with P. nabhitabhatai.

The second genus, Philippinarus, contains P. granulatus, transferred from Oliarus, and the newly described P. tarandiformis. Both species are known only from Luzon in the Philippines. P. granulatus is represented in the cited material by a 5.0 mm male and a 5.6 mm female, while the male holotype of P. tarandiformis measures 6.3 mm; the latter species’ female is unknown.

Philippinarus is distinguished by wing venation, body proportions, hind-leg structure, metatarsal spine arrangement and male genitalia. P. granulatus and P. tarandiformis are separated by features of the aedeagus, including the form of the right ventrobasal process, the apex of the medioventral process and the distribution of small spines on apical processes.

Known records place Philippinarus on Luzon, while Pteroprocessus has a broader recorded range extending through the Indochinese Peninsula into China, with P. binghami known from Rangoon. The authors state that the Oriental Pentastirini fauna remains incompletely known and that some existing generic concepts, including those associated with Oliarus and Indolipa, require further taxonomic and phylogenetic investigation.

Subject of Research: Morphological taxonomy of Oriental Pentastirini planthoppers

Article Title: Two new remarkable genera of Oriental Pentastirini ( Hemiptera , Auchenorrhyncha , Cixiidae )

Article References: Schlitt, B. P., & Orosz, A. (2026). Two new remarkable genera of Oriental Pentastirini (Hemiptera, Auchenorrhyncha, Cixiidae). ZooKeys, 1292, 327-347. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1292.206598

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1292.206598

Keywords: Pentastirini, Cixiidae, planthoppers, taxonomy, new genera, new species, morphology, Philippinarus, Pteroprocessus, Oriental fauna, remarkable, genera

Reptalus belongs to the family Cixiidae, a lineage of planthoppers within the order Hemiptera, the true bugs. Cixiids are small, active insects that feed on plant sap through needle-like mouthparts, and their nymphs typically live in soil or leaf litter, often in association with plant roots. The genus Reptalus was established by the Russian taxonomist Emeljanov in 1971, with Cixius quinquecostatus Dufour, 1833 originally designated as its type species. Later work, informed by studies of the group’s morphology, transferred the type fixation to Flata artemisiae Becker, 1865, a change discussed in detail by specialists in 2024. Today the genus comprises four subgenera, Reptalus, Trepalus, Palvanus and Pererepa, and, with the new addition, 35 valid species distributed across the Palaearctic, Nearctic and Oriental regions.

What makes Reptalus recognisable is a distinctive combination of anatomical features. The vertex, the plate on top of the head between the eyes, is extremely broad and rectangular. The pygofer, a ring-like structure of the male genital capsule, is asymmetrical. The anal segment carries a caudal margin that is broadly and irregularly concave, and the apex of the gonostyli bears a characteristic large process on the inner side. Perhaps most telling is the aedeagus, the male intromittent organ, which carries a long process arising from a right-basal periandrial position, often accompanied by a smaller process at its base. These genital structures are the taxonomist’s primary toolkit in this group, because external appearance alone often fails to separate closely related species.

The new species, formally named Reptalus (Pererepa) inaequalis Lv, Li & Chen, sp. nov., was collected by sweeping in Shaowu City at coordinates 27°36’N, 117°49’E, with the holotype and paratypes, four additional males and eight females, gathered on 28 May 2012. All type material is deposited at the Institute of Entomology, Guizhou University in Guiyang. The species is a relatively large member of its genus: males measure 8.5 to 9.5 millimetres in total length and females 9.3 to 10.4 millimetres. Its body is black, with yellowish-brown carinae on the vertex, frons and pronotum, brown eyes, and semi-translucent forewings of light greyish brown marked with a dark brown stigma. The species name derives from the Latin word inaequalis, meaning unequal, a reference to the dorsal margin of the periandrium, which bears an unequally bifurcate spinose process at its apex.

Technically, R. inaequalis is diagnosed by a striking array of genital features. The hind tarsomere shows a chaetotaxy of 8/9 to 10, and the second tarsomere of the hind tarsi carries seven platellae, small plate-like sensilla on the foot. The pygofer is asymmetrical, with a fingerlike process at the middle of the left lobe, and both the anal segment and the gonostyli are asymmetrical, the latter bearing three lamellar processes at the apical part that curve inward. The aedeagus carries seven processes in total: the ventral margin of the periandrium bears two spinous processes, the shorter of which is shaped like a hawk’s beak and directed ventrocephalad, while the dorsal margin carries a forked process of unequal length. The endosoma, curved cephalad, bears three spinous processes at its basal ventral margin. In the female, the posterior vagina and associated structures, including the gonapophyses and the clavate gonoplac, are illustrated in detail, providing a morphological benchmark for future comparisons.

Beyond the new species itself, the review makes a significant contribution by describing and illustrating the female genitalia of Reptalus (Reptalus) arcbogdulus (Dlabola, 1965) and Reptalus (Pererepa) quadricinctus (Matsumura, 1914) for the first time. This matters because recent work on related cixiid genera such as Neocarpia, Oecleopsis and Tsauria has demonstrated that features of the posterior vaginal wall serve as key diagnostic characters for species-level identification. Pronounced sexual dimorphism has also been reported in R. iguchii, where males and females differ visibly in forewing coloration, underscoring how unreliable external appearance can be. Given how scarce female genitalic data have been for Reptalus, the new descriptions establish a reference framework that should make future systematic studies of the genus considerably more rigorous.

The review also delivers a complete checklist and an updated identification key to all seven Chinese species, a practical tool for anyone working with these insects in the field or the museum. The key separates the two subgenera present in China by whether the periandrium bears a dorsal tooth, then works through differences in forewing banding and the number, shape and position of aedeagal processes. Among the species covered, Reptalus (Reptalus) quinquecostatus boasts the widest global distribution, recorded from the United Kingdom and Spain across much of Europe and Asia to China’s Chongqing municipality, while Reptalus (Pererepa) quadricinctus is the most broadly distributed within China itself, known from fourteen provinces and municipalities stretching from Jilin in the northeast to Sichuan and Guizhou in the southwest.

The distributional data collected during the study carry their own headline. The known range of R. quadricinctus has now been extended to include Henan and Hebei provinces, confirming what the authors interpret as an ongoing range expansion within China. The seven Chinese species are spread across six zoogeographical subregions, from the Northeast and North China subregions to the Qinghai–Tibet, Southwest, Central and South subregions, suggesting that the genus has radiated into a wide variety of climates and habitats. The authors note that continued, intensified sampling is expected to extend the distribution of quadricinctus further and may well reveal additional, possibly undescribed taxa, a reminder that even relatively well-studied insect groups in China still hold surprises.

One of the most intriguing findings concerns what these insects eat. Among the documented host associations of Cixiidae, and indeed of planthoppers in general, Reptalus is the most extensively recorded genus, with larvae or adults collected from representatives of seventeen plant orders, ranging from grasses and legumes to roses, pines and nightshades. During the field surveys underpinning this review, adults of the new species R. inaequalis were collected from bamboo, the subfamily Bambusoideae within the grass family Poaceae. This indicates that bamboos may constitute an additional, previously unrecorded host resource for the species, adding a major group of plants to the genus’s already impressive host list and hinting at an ecological association worth investigating further.

For a group of insects most people will never notice, the Reptalus of China now tell a remarkably complete story. Seven species, a fully illustrated key, female genitalia described for three species, and a new bamboo-dwelling addition from Fujian together transform a poorly documented corner of the Chinese fauna into one of the better-characterized planthopper lineages in the region. The work also illustrates a broader truth of modern taxonomy: the characters that define a species often hide in fractions of a millimetre, in the forked tip of a spinose process or the proportions of a vaginal sclerite, and only patient morphological study, supported by careful fieldwork with a simple sweeping net, can bring them to light. As sampling intensifies across China’s provinces, the seven-species count for Reptalus may prove to be less a ceiling than a waypoint.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic review of the cixiid planthopper genus Reptalus in China, including the description of a new bamboo-associated species

Article Title: Review of the Chinese species of the genus Reptalus Emeljanov, 1971 ( Hemiptera , Fulgoromorpha , Cixiidae ), with description of a new species

Article References: Lv, S.-S., Li, Z.-Z., Zhi, Y., Zhang, Y.-B., Chen, X.-S., & Yang, L. (2026). Review of the Chinese species of the genus Reptalus Emeljanov, 1971 (Hemiptera, Fulgoromorpha, Cixiidae), with description of a new species. ZooKeys, 1290, 241-256. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1290.186750

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1290.186750

Keywords: Reptalus, Cixiidae, planthoppers, Hemiptera, new species, taxonomy, China, Fujian, female genitalia, bamboo, ZooKeys, entomology

The new species belong to two families of planthoppers, the Cixiidae and the Meenoplidae, sap-sucking insects in the order Hemiptera. Three are cixiids: Cixius palmirandus from La Palma, Cixius theseus from El Hierro and Tachycixius gomerobscurus from La Gomera. The fourth, Meenoplus skotinophilus, is a meenoplid from El Hierro. The discovery of Tachycixius gomerobscurus is particularly significant, as it marks the first record of a subterranean-adapted planthopper on La Gomera, an island that lacks lava tube caves altogether because volcanism there ceased around 2.5 million years ago.

The Canary Islands are of purely volcanic origin, with the different islands emerging from the sea during the past 20.2 million years. The seven main islands differ considerably in age, size and altitude, ranging from El Hierro, barely 1.12 million years old, to Fuerteventura’s ancient terrain. This geological youthfulness matters enormously for subterranean life. Lava tubes form in low-viscosity basaltic flows known as pahoehoe, or ropy lava, and range from a few centimeters in diameter to tunnels several meters high and tens of kilometers long. Roots from surface vegetation entering these hollow underground spaces provide a food resource for animals that inhabit the caves throughout their entire life cycle.

More than 230 troglobionts — obligate subterranean arthropods — have been documented in the archipelago, yet the underground environment remains far less well investigated than surface biotopes. Planthoppers are among the insects most frequently encountered in the islands’ lava tubes. While some individuals show no external differences from surface-dwelling relatives and are likely occasional cave visitors, others display characteristic troglomorphies: reduction or loss of compound eyes, reduced and non-functional wings, and light bodily pigmentation. These traits mark them as troglobionts, spending their entire life cycle in subterranean habitats.

Cixius palmirandus, the new species from La Palma, is a case study in extreme cave adaptation. The single known specimen, a male just 3.9 millimeters long, was collected in Cueva Honda de Miranda, a labyrinthic lava tube with over 20 galleries and one kilometer of total development on the island’s eastern slope. The species is completely blind — compound eyes and ocelli are absent — with strongly reduced tegmina and vestigial wings, and a stramineous yellowish coloration. It is certainly unable to fly and is regarded as an obligate cavernicole, restricted to the subterranean environment throughout its life. The gallery where it was found lies relatively close to the cave entrance, where high relative humidity and abundant roots prevail.

Cixius theseus, from El Hierro, is similarly blind and flightless, with a male body length of 2.7 millimeters and a female of 3.3 millimeters. It was discovered not in a cave but in the mesovoid shallow substratum, or MSS — a network of voids and cracks at the interface between soil and rock layer. On El Hierro, this habitat takes a distinctly volcanic form: fields of recent lava and volcanic deposits where a layer of lava clinker is covered by fine ash, maintaining high humidity and rather constant temperature throughout the year. The species was found at 1230 meters altitude in laurel forest dominated by Morella faya and Erica canariensis, within the huge landslide of El Golfo on the island’s northwest. Its name refers to Theseus, the Greek hero and friend of Ariadne — a nod to the blind insect’s thread-like navigation of the subterranean labyrinth.

Tachycixius gomerobscurus presents a milder degree of troglomorphy. Unlike its blind relatives, it retains small but pigmented compound eyes and distinct lateral ocelli, though its hind wings are strongly reduced and vestigial. The species was collected over many years using pitfall traps installed in the colluvial MSS of Reventón Oscuro, a steep slope inside dense, humid laurel forest at 1035 meters altitude in Garajonay National Park. Nearly 40 individuals, both adults and nymphs, have been captured there, making this the most productive site for troglobitic planthoppers in the entire archipelago. The traps, PVC pipes with multiple holes and silicone covers, were baited with liver or blue cheese, though the planthoppers probably fell in by chance rather than being attracted, as they feed by sucking fluids from roots.

Meenoplus skotinophilus, the new meenoplid from El Hierro, occupies an intermediate position between surface-dwelling meenoplids and strongly troglomorphic species. Its compound eyes are small but present and red, its tegmina and wings are well developed, and its name — combining the Greek words for darkness and friend — reflects its cave-dwelling habits. The species was discovered in Cueva de Guinea, a barely 25-meter-long lava tube with a small roof entrance in the lowland area of Frontera. The cave’s high humidity and many roots attached to walls and hanging from the ceiling create a good environment for invertebrate communities. The researchers also obtained mitochondrial COI barcode sequences for three individuals, which proved identical to each other and showed no matches above 85 percent similarity in genetic reference databases, confirming the genetic novelty of the lineage.

With seventeen documented species of strictly hypogean planthoppers, the Canary Islands now hold the highest number of subterranean planthoppers of any region worldwide. Strikingly, twelve of the seventeen species occur on the two youngest islands, La Palma and El Hierro, where volcanic activity prevails and extended areas of suitable cave habitat exist. On La Palma, the most recent eruption in 2021 along the Cumbre Vieja ridge created the new volcano Tajogaite and certainly many new lava tubes. The researchers hypothesize that in the Cixiidae at least five to six, and maximally twelve, successful underground colonization events have taken place, while in the Meenoplidae at least two lineages must have colonized the islands despite no epigean meenoplid species having ever been reported from the archipelago.

The zoogeographic patterns observed carry a sobering evolutionary message. Most troglobitic planthoppers on the Canary Islands have no extant close epigean relatives and are therefore relicts — persistent remnants of formerly widespread faunas. The researchers conclude that the cavernicolous Meenoplidae of Gran Canaria, La Palma and El Hierro, together with several cavernicolous Cixiidae, are indicative of an ancient surface fauna that is now extinct. This pattern recurs across many other arthropod groups in the islands, which are represented only by subterranean-adapted species. All cave planthopper species of the Canary Islands are single-island endemics, known from few locations and few specimens each, and all must be regarded as vulnerable, if not endangered, under IUCN criteria.

Conservation concerns are immediate and tangible. Cueva Honda de Miranda, home of Cixius palmirandus, lies in an area heavily transformed into a rural environment with scattered homes and agricultural fields. The sewage sanitation system is non-existent, and wastewater is discharged directly into underground wells, gradually contaminating the subsurface. The detection of American cockroach nymphs in the cave signals local contamination and the potential displacement of native subterranean fauna by invasive species. At Cueva de Guinea, home of Meenoplus skotinophilus, significant tourist activity and facilities equipped with bathrooms lacking sewage connections pose similar threats. Meanwhile, at Cueva de la Curva on El Hierro, breakage of the end of the lava tube by loader machines working on the surface has caused the stable, saturated atmosphere essential for obligate troglobionts to collapse, rendering three species formerly exclusive to that cave very scarce.

Climate change compounds these pressures. Increasing periods of extreme drought have occurred over the past several years, and the stable, saturated atmosphere essential for obligate terrestrial troglobionts is no longer maintained in larger cave passages. Cave planthoppers may cope with short-term adverse conditions by retreating into smaller crevices of the MSS, which are less prone to desiccation, but long-term climate change will have lasting indirect and direct influence on the subterranean environment. Increasing temperatures and lower precipitation will alter surface plant communities, and plant species providing adequate roots for food supply may vanish. Sporadic observations indicate that cave planthoppers may be temperature sensitive, suggesting that rising average annual temperatures could result in their extirpation.

Despite these threats, the outlook for discovery remains bright. The researchers note indications — observations and images without voucher specimens — that more new species await discovery, and it is conceivable that the number of obligate subterranean planthopper species will eventually double. Particularly promising are caves in the north of La Palma, the El Golfo region on El Hierro, and the extended MSS on Tenerife, Gran Canaria and La Gomera. Conversely, the eastern islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote are much drier, their caves lack roots inside, and planthoppers have never been found there. Troglobitic planthoppers offer unique opportunities to study adaptation to specialized habitats, including physiology, behaviour and the evolutionary dynamics of subterranean speciation — and they could serve as models for understanding climate change impact on subterranean environments worldwide.

Subject of Research: Discovery of four new cavernicolous planthopper species in the Canary Islands

Article Title: Endless forms most wonderful: Four new cavernicolous planthopper species ( Hemiptera , Fulgoromorpha , Cixiidae and Meenoplidae ) from the Canary Islands

Article References: Hoch, H., López, H., Naranjo, M., Aguín-Pombo, D., & Oromí, P. (2025). Endless forms most wonderful: Four new cavernicolous planthopper species (Hemiptera, Fulgoromorpha, Cixiidae and Meenoplidae) from the Canary Islands. Subterranean Biology, 51, 61-101. https://doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.51.144111

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/subtbiol.51.144111

Keywords: Canary Islands, planthoppers, cave fauna, troglobionts, Cixiidae, Meenoplidae, lava tubes, endemic species, subterranean biology, conservation, Hemiptera, biodiversity

The defining feature of Noo-Noo is its mouthparts. These structures were exceptionally long and flexible, reaching nearly twice the length of the insect’s body. Among modern planthoppers, the closest living relatives of the newly described species, mouthparts are built like a simple needle: rigid, straight, and suited to piercing plant tissue to draw out fluids. Noo-Noo and its ancient kin, by contrast, carried feeding organs that could bend and extend, allowing them to reach food sources inaccessible to insects with more conventional equipment — deep inside cracks and crevices in tree bark, where sugar-rich fluids could be tapped.

The study was led by Dolev Fabrikant and Dr. Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou of Tel Aviv University’s School of Zoology, part of the Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and the New Environmental School. The team examined fossil insects belonging to Neazoniidae, an ancient family of planthoppers, including 13 specimens preserved in Kachin amber from Myanmar. Kachin amber is one of the most important windows into Cretaceous terrestrial life, preserving organisms in extraordinary three-dimensional detail, and the Neazoniidae specimens it contains turned out to hold a surprise that only modern imaging technology could fully unpack.

Under close examination, the elongated mouthparts of the ancient insects revealed a surface densely covered with transverse folds. To determine whether these folds were merely decorative or structurally meaningful, the researchers turned to high-resolution micro-computed tomography, a technique that uses X-rays to reconstruct internal anatomy without damaging the fossil. The scans showed that the folds were integral to the structure itself rather than external ornamentation. Their likely function was to give the mouthparts flexibility while preventing them from kinking or collapsing under stress — much like a bendy drinking straw or a corrugated flexible hose, which can curve freely without pinching shut.

The fossils themselves provided further confirmation of this flexibility. In several specimens, the mouthparts were preserved in a bent position. Because amber freezes insects in place at the moment they are engulfed by resin, these bent postures represent snapshots of the animals as they were in life. The researchers therefore interpret the curled mouthparts as direct evidence that the structures were genuinely flexible while the insects were alive, not artifacts of preservation. Among the living relatives of Neazoniidae, no comparable structure is known, marking this as an ancient evolutionary solution that has since disappeared entirely.

The new species’ unusual appearance inspired its name. The epithet “Noo-Noo” was chosen after the friendly vacuum cleaner from the children’s television series Teletubbies, whose long, flexible hose bears an uncanny resemblance to the ancient insect’s feeding organ. The whimsical moniker belies the scientific weight of the find, but it also captures the essence of the discovery: an animal whose most distinctive feature looks like something engineered rather than evolved, a corrugated tube coiled within a creature smaller than a fingernail.

Why would an insect need such an elaborate feeding apparatus? Butterflies might seem an obvious comparison, since they use a flexible proboscis to drink nectar from flowers. The researchers, however, believe the resemblance is only superficial. The mouthparts of Noo-Noo pointed backward and functioned as a piercing-and-sucking system, a design that, like those of its modern relatives, is poorly suited to nectar feeding. Moreover, despite examining numerous fossils, the team found no convincing evidence of pollen accumulating on the insects’ bodies — the kind of sign that would indicate a role as pollinators. The butterfly analogy, in other words, fails on both anatomical and ecological grounds.

The explanation the researchers propose is more specialized: these insects were sap-suckers with a taste for what lies beneath the bark. Their long, flexible mouthparts could have snaked through narrow cracks in tree bark and guided the piercing organs toward deep vascular tissues, where nutrient-rich fluids flow. At the tip of the mouthpart sat another unusual feature — a structure with two grooved lobes that likely opened during feeding, helping to anchor the mouthpart against the walls of the crack. The researchers liken this mechanism to a wall plug expanding inside a drilled hole, holding the apparatus firmly in place while the insect fed.

The discovery may carry broader implications for understanding Cretaceous forest ecosystems. Long or corrugated feeding structures appeared in several unrelated insect groups during this period, raising the possibility that forests rich in thick-barked trees offered a competitive advantage to insects capable of reaching deeper tissues. The study notes that resin-producing forests of the Cretaceous were also associated with evidence of recurrent fires, and trees in fire-prone environments often develop thicker bark as protection. The researchers cautiously suggest that such conditions may have created ecological opportunities for unique feeding strategies — strategies that are almost entirely absent among planthoppers today, whose needle-like mouthparts reflect a very different set of environmental pressures.

Dr. Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou stated: “The discovery of ‘Noo-Noo,’ a new species that lived approximately 99 million years ago, gives us an extraordinary glimpse into the insect world of the age of the dinosaurs. This is not merely an insect previously unknown to science, but an animal that developed an evolutionary solution with almost no modern equivalent: a long, flexible, and durable feeding organ that likely enabled it to reach food deep within tree bark. The fact that similar structures appeared in several insect groups during the Cretaceous period suggests that ancient forests created ecological conditions and opportunities very different from those we know today. The discovery of a new species like this is therefore not simply the addition of another name to the tree of life, but another piece of the puzzle that enables us to reconstruct what ecosystems looked like and how they functioned tens of millions of years ago.”

For paleontologists, the find underscores the value of amber as a time capsule. Soft structures such as flexible mouthparts rarely survive in conventional compression fossils, where delicate anatomy is crushed or dissolved over geological time. Amber, by contrast, entombs specimens in three dimensions, preserving fine surface detail and even internal architecture that can be visualized with micro-CT scanning. Without such preservation, a feeding apparatus as unusual as Noo-Noo’s might never have been recognized, and the evolutionary experiment it represents would have vanished from the record altogether.

The description of Cretodorus noonoo adds a new branch to the tree of life and, just as importantly, a new data point in the history of ecological specialization. It shows that during the age of the dinosaurs, insects were experimenting with feeding strategies that have since been abandoned, shaped by forests whose structure and fire regimes differed markedly from those of the modern world. Each such discovery refines the picture of how Cretaceous ecosystems functioned — and reminds us that evolution’s portfolio has always included designs that today seem almost alien.

Subject of Research: A new Cretaceous planthopper species with flexible, corrugated mouthparts preserved in Kachin amber

Article Title: Rare discovery reveals a new species from the dinosaur age

Article References: Rare discovery reveals a new species from the dinosaur age. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Cretodorus noonoo, amber fossil, planthoppers, Neazoniidae, Kachin amber, Cretaceous period, micro-computed tomography, insect mouthparts, Tel Aviv University, paleontology, tree bark feeding, Myanmar amber