''Emiliana'' is an extinct

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

planthopper A planthopper is any insect in the infraorder Fulgoromorpha, in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, a group exceeding 12,500 described species worldwide. The name comes from their remarkable resemblance to leaves and other plants of their environment ...

in the Tropiduchidae tribe Emilianini and containing the single species ''Emiliana alexandri''. The species is known only from the

Middle Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', ' Dawn') a ...

Parachute Member, part of the

Green River Formation The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes in three basins along the present-day Green River (Colorado River), Green River in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The sedimen ...

, in the Piceance Creek Basin, Garfield County, northwestern

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, USA.

History and classification

''Emiliana alexandri'' is known only from one fossil, the part and counterpart

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

, specimen number "PIN no. 4621/546". The specimen is composed of a single isolated tegmen which is preserved as a

compression fossil A compression fossil is a fossil preserved in sedimentary rock that has undergone physical compression. While it is uncommon to find animals preserved as good compression fossils, it is very common to find plants preserved this way. The reason f ...

in sedimentary rock. The fossil was recovered by David Kohls of

Colorado Mountain College Colorado Mountain College (CMC) is a Public college, public community college with multiple campuses in western Colorado, and headquartered in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Founded in 1965, the institution offers numerous associate degrees, eigh ...

and A. P. Rasnitsyn of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

from outcrops of the

s Parachute Member exposed in the Anvil Points area of Garfield County, Colorado, USA. The type specimen is currently preserved in the paleoentomology collections housed in the

Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences The Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences (PIN; ) in Moscow is among a paleontological institute. An affiliate of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it includes collections from all over the former Soviet Union, as well as from other ...

, located in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, Russia. ''Emiliana'' was first studied by Dmitry Shcherbakov of the Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences with his 2006 type description of the tribe, genus and species being published in the ''Russian Entomological Journal''. The generic name was coined by Shcherbakov in recognition of the world authority in planthoppers, A. F. Emeljanov, with the tribe name being a derivative of the genus name. The

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

of the

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''alexandri'' is in reference to Emeljanov's first name Alexandr. When ''Emiliana alexandri'' was described it displaced the genus '' Jantaritambia'', which is known from Baltic Amber specimens, as the oldest member of Tropiduchidae to be described from the fossil record, being 10 million years older than ''Jantaritambia''. The genus is noted to be similar to the modern tropiduchid genera '' Neommatissus'', '' Paricana'', '' Pseudoparicana'', and '' Paricanoides''.

Description

The ''E. alexandri'' type specimen is a well-preserved almost complete adult fore-wing, called a tegmen which is long. The tegmen is preserved with a mostly pale or possibly

hyaline A hyaline substance is one with a glassy appearance. The word is derived from , and . Histopathology Hyaline cartilage is named after its glassy appearance on fresh gross pathology. On light microscopy of H&E stained slides, the extracellula ...

coloration with both the wing base and wing tip darkened. The forking of the Cu vein occurs much closer to the vein base then in other members of the family. Also the merging of the MP and CuA veins is distinct to the genus. ''Emiliana'' possess a crossvein, the ''cup-pcu'' is seen only in the extinct monotypic tribe Jantaritambiini.

References

Fossil taxa described in 2006 † Eocene insects of North America † Species known from a single specimen {{Fulgoromorpha-stub