Locustopsinae Handlirsch, 1906

GOROCHOV, ANDREI V. & CORAM, ROBERT A., 2023, New and little known taxa of the order Orthoptera (Insecta) from the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic of England, Palaeoentomology 6 (2), pp. 198-204 : 200

Subfamily Locustopsinae Handlirsch, 1906

Remarks. In 2006, Cretaceous representatives of Locustopsinae were tentatively included in four genera having different positions of the MA2 base and different numbers of MP+CuA1 branches in the tegmina ( Gorochov et al., 2006): Locustopsis Handlirsch, 1906 with the MA2 base located before the MA1 bifurcation and with MP+CuA1 having two branches; Zeunerella Sharov, 1968 with MA2 located on 2MA1 behind the MA1 bifurcation and with the same structure of MP+CuA1; Mesolocustopsis Hong & Wang, 1990 with MA as in Locustopsis but with one branch of MP+CuA1; Zessinia Martins-Neto, 1990 with MA as in Zeunerella but with MP+CuA1 as in Mesolocustopsis . The Cretaceous genera Cratozeunerella Martins-Neto, 1998 and Cratolocustopsis Martins-Neto, 1998 were also tentatively synonymized with Zeunerella and Mesolocustopsis , respectively.

The tentative genera Locustopsis , Zeunerella and Mesolocustopsis are also known in the Jurassic, but the two latter genera are represented in these deposits by only one and two species, respectively ( Gorochov et al., 2006); Locustopsis , on the contrary, has numerous species of the Jurassic age. Moreover, the structure of its tegminal MA is clearly more primitive, characteristic of all the Triassic representatives of Locustopsidae . However, the other Jurassic locustopsines have the same structure of this vein (as in Locustopsis ) but are attributed to a few exclusively Jurassic genera: Gomphocerites Heer, 1852 (Lower Jurassic); Parapleurites Brauer, Redtenbacher & Ganglbauer, 1889 (Lower or Middle Jurassic); Phaneropterites Handlirsch, 1906 (Upper Jurassic); Conocephalella Strand, 1928 (Upper Jurassic); Brodiana Zeuner, 1942 (Lower Jurassic); Schwinzia Zessin, 1983 (Lower Jurassic); Plesioschwinzia Zessin, 1988 (Lower Jurassic); Orichalcum Whalley, 1985 (Lower Jurassic). Brodiana and Orichalcum are most probably synonyms of Locustopsis ; Gomphocerites , Phaneropterites and Conocephalella are insufficiently understood; but the rest of the Jurassic genera are more or less suitable for determination, and their tentative diagnostic characters are listed below (in the discussion of Plesioschwinzia ).