Piesmatidae is a small

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

true bugs Hemiptera (; ) is an order (biology), order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising more than 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, assassin bugs, Cimex, bed bugs, and shield bugs. They ...

, commonly called ash-grey leaf bugs. The Piesmatidae are distributed mostly in the

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

, with some occurring in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. A common species found throughout the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

is '' Piesma cinereum''. (2007): An Unusual, Primitive Piesmatidae (Insecta: Heteroptera) in Cretaceous Amber from Myanmar (Burma). ''American Museum Novitates'' 3611: 1-17.
PDF fulltext
/ref> Ash-grey leaf bugs are small

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s, some 2–4 mm overall. The head,

thorax The thorax (: thoraces or thoraxes) or chest is a part of the anatomy of mammals and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main di ...

and the firm part of the wings are extensively dimpled. This resembles the similar pattern of the Tingidae of the

infraorder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between Family_(biology), family and Class_(biology), class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classific ...

Cimicomorpha The Cimicomorpha are an infraorder of insects in the order Hemiptera, the true bugs. The Rostrum (anatomy), rostrum and other Morphology (biology), morphology of some members apparently is adapted to feeding on animals as their prey or host (biol ...

, and was initially taken to signify a close relationship. It is due to

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...

however. They feed on

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

sap, mostly of

Chenopodiaceae Amaranthaceae ( ) is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type (biology), type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 ...

and

Caryophyllaceae Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family (biology), family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranth ...

. '' Piesma linnavouri'' have been found on ''

Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...

'' (

Fabaceae Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

). '' Mcateella'' have been found on many host plants but mostly ''Acacia'' and ''

Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family (biology), family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genus, genera with about 1,660 known species. Australia and South Africa have the greatest concentr ...

''. The host plants of '' Miespa'' remain unknown.

Taxonomy

Three subfamilies and eleven genera belong to the family Piesmatidae:

Piesmatinae

* '' Afropiesma'' * † '' Eopiesma''

Oise amber Oise amber () is a type of amber found near the Oise river near Creil in northern France. Oise amber is around 53 million years old, dating to the Early Eocene (Ypresian). Oise amber is softer than Baltic amber, although Oise amber is older ...

, France,

Ypresian In the geologic timescale the Ypresian is the oldest age (geology), age or lowest stage (stratigraphy), stratigraphic stage of the Eocene. It spans the time between , is preceded by the Thanetian Age (part of the Paleocene) and is followed by th ...

* † '' Heissiana''

Baltic amber Baltic amber or succinite is amber from the Baltic region, home of its largest known deposits. It was produced sometime during the Eocene epoch, but exactly when is controversial. It has been estimated that this forested region provided the re ...

, Rovno amber, Eocene * '' Mcateella'' * '' Miespa'' * '' Parapiesma'' * '' Piesma''

Psamminae

* '' Psammium'' * '' Saxicoris'' * '' Sympeplus'' ;Thaicorniae *'' Thaicoris'' Many species were formerly in the

type genus In biological taxonomy, the type genus (''genus typica'') is the genus which defines a biological family and the root of the family name. Zoological nomenclature According to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, "The name-bearin ...

'' Piesma'', from which the

subgenera In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...

'' Afropiesma'' and '' Parapiesma'' were split off into separate genera. The genus '' Thaicoris'' was for some time placed in this family, but it has more recently been suggested that it is a member of the Thaumastocoridae. There are two

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

genera. '' Eopiesma'' from the earliest Eocene (about 55 mya) is still a very basal member of the family. '' Heissiana'', found in

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...

from the

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

might be a northern relative of '' Mcateella'' and '' Miespa'' but given its distribution it might more comfortably be considered closely related to the ancestor of ''Eopiesma''. From 2007 to 2009 '' Cretopiesma'' was placed within the family. '' Cretopiesma'' was found in mid-

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

amber from

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

and lived about 100 mya (

million years ago Million years ago, abbreviated as Mya, Myr (megayear) or Ma (megaannum), is a unit of time equal to (i.e. years), or approximately 31.6 teraseconds. Usage Myr is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used w ...

) and was initially considered to be a primitive piesmatid but this has since been rejected. The closest relatives of the Piesmatidae remain rather insufficiently determined. After the ash-grey leaf bugs were recognized as Pentatomomorpha, they were most often placed in the Lygaeoidea based on

cladistic Cladistics ( ; from Ancient Greek 'branch') is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is ...

analysis, with their relatives variously presumed to be the Berytidae, Colobathristidae and Malcidae, or the peculiar,

beetle Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

-like Psamminae, a

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

of the

Lygaeidae The Lygaeidae are a family in the Hemiptera (true bugs), with more than 110 genera in four subfamilies. The family is commonly referred to as seed bugs, and less commonly, milkweed bugs, or ground bugs. Many species feed on seeds, some on sap or ...

. For some time, the Psamminae were even included in the Piesmatidae. Alternatively, the ash-grey leaf bugs were considered Pentatomomorpha ''

incertae sedis or is a term used for a taxonomy (biology), taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Alternatively, such groups are frequently referred to as "enigmatic taxa". In the system of open nomenclature, uncertainty ...

'' or placed in a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

superfamily Piesmatoidea with the discovery of ''Cretopiesma''. However a cladistic analysis rejected ''Cretopiesma'' from Piesmatidae and placed the genus in the family

Aradidae Aradidae is a family of true bugs (Heteroptera). Family members are commonly known as flat bugs due to their dorsoventrally flattened bodies. With few exceptions, these cryptic insects are of no economic importance. Aradids are 3 to 11 mm long ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1950799 * Heteroptera families