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The genus Chilecicada Sanborn, 2014 is shown to be a complex of closely related species rather than a monospecific genus. Chilecicada citatatemporaria Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. culenesensis Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. curacaviensis Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. impartemporaria Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. magna Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. mapuchensis Sanborn n. sp., C. oraria Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. parrajaraorum Sanborn n. sp., C. partemporaria Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. pehuenchesensis Sanborn & Cole n. sp., C. trifascia Sanborn n. sp., C. trifasciunca Sanborn & Cole n. sp., and C. viridicitata Sanborn & Cole n. sp. are described as new. Chilecicada occidentis Walker, 1850 is re-described to facilitate separation of the new species from the only previously known species. Song and cytochrome oxidase I analysis available for most species support the separation of the new taxa from the type species of the genus. Known species distributions and a key to the species of the genus are also provided. The new species increases the known cicada diversity 61.9% to 34 species, 91.2% of which are endemic to Chile. 

Abstract Phylogenetic asymmetry is common throughout the tree of life and results from contrasting patterns of speciation and extinction in the paired descendant lineages of ancestral nodes. On the depauperate side of a node, we find extant ‘relict’ taxa that sit atop long, unbranched lineages. Here, we show that a tiny, pale green, inconspicuous and poorly known cicada in the genus Derotettix, endemic to degraded salt-plain habitats in arid regions of central Argentina, is a relict lineage that is sister to all other modern cicadas. Nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies of cicadas inferred from probe-based genomic hybrid capture data of both target and non-target loci and a morphological cladogram support this hypothesis. We strengthen this conclusion with genomic data from one of the cicada nutritional bacterial endosymbionts, Sulcia, an ancient and obligate endosymbiont of the larger plant-sucking bugs (Auchenorrhyncha) and an important source of maternally inherited phylogenetic data. We establish Derotettiginae subfam. nov. as a new, monogeneric, fifth cicada subfamily, and compile existing and new data on the distribution, ecology and diet of Derotettix. Our consideration of the palaeoenvironmental literature and host-plant phylogenetics allows us to predict what might have led to the relict status of Derotettix over 100 Myr of habitat change in South America.