A New Genus of Spittlebugs (Hemiptera, Cercopidae) from the Eocene of Central Tibetan Plateau.

The superfamily Cercopoidea is commonly named as "spittlebugs", as its nymphs produce a spittle mass to protect themselves. Cosmoscartini (Cercopoidea: Cercopidae) is a large and brightly colored Old World tropical tribe, including 11 genera. A new genus gen.

Leaf fossils of (Arecaceae) from the Oligocene of northern Vietnam and their paleoclimatic implications.

Recent paleobotanical investigations in Vietnam provide a good opportunity to improve our understanding of the biodiversity and paleoclimatic conditions in the geological past of Southeast Asia. Palms (Arecaceae) are a diverse family of typical thermophilous plants with a relatively low tolerance for freezing. In this study, we describe well-preserved fossil palm leaves from the Oligocene Dong Ho Formation of Hoanh Bo Basin, northern Vietnam.

Orographic evolution of northern Tibet shaped vegetation and plant diversity in eastern Asia.

The growth of the Tibetan Plateau throughout the past 66 million years has profoundly affected the Asian climate, but how this unparalleled orogenesis might have driven vegetation and plant diversity changes in eastern Asia is poorly understood. We approach this question by integrating modeling results and fossil data. We show that growth of north and northeastern Tibet affects vegetation and, crucially, plant diversity in eastern Asia by altering the monsoon system.

A Middle Eocene lowland humid subtropical "Shangri-La" ecosystem in central Tibet.

Tibet's ancient topography and its role in climatic and biotic evolution remain speculative due to a paucity of quantitative surface-height measurements through time and space, and sparse fossil records. However, newly discovered fossils from a present elevation of ∼4,850 m in central Tibet improve substantially our knowledge of the ancient Tibetan environment. The 70 plant fossil taxa so far recovered include the first occurrences of several modern Asian lineages and represent a Middle Eocene (∼47 Mya) humid subtropical ecosystem.

Uplift, climate and biotic changes at the Eocene-Oligocene transition in south-eastern Tibet.

The uplift history of south-eastern Tibet is crucial to understanding processes driving the tectonic evolution of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding areas. Underpinning existing palaeoaltimetric studies has been regional mapping based in large part on biostratigraphy that assumes a Neogene modernization of the highly diverse, but threatened, Asian biota. Here, with new radiometric dating and newly collected plant-fossil archives, we quantify the surface height of part of the south-eastern margin of Tibet in the latest Eocene (∼34 Ma) to be ∼3 km and rising, possibly attaining its present elevation (3.