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Abstract Recently discovered amber-preserved fossil Cicadellidae exhibit combinations of morphological traits not observed in the modern fauna and have the potential to shed new light on the evolution of this highly diverse family. To place the fossils explicitly within a phylogenetic context, representatives of five extinct genera from Cretaceous Myanmar amber, and one from Eocene Baltic amber were incorporated into a matrix comprising 229 discrete morphological characters and representatives of all modern subfamilies. Phylogenetic analyses yielded well resolved and largely congruent estimates that support the monophyly of most previously recognized cicadellid subfamilies and indicate that the treehoppers are derived from a lineage of Cicadellidae. Instability in the morphology-based phylogenies is mainly confined to deep internal splits that received low branch support in one or more analyses and also were not consistently resolved by recent phylogenomic analyses. Placement of fossil taxa is mostly stable across analyses. Three new Cretaceous leafhopper genera, Burmotettix gen. nov., Kachinella gen nov., and Viraktamathus gen. nov., consistently form a monophyletic group distinct from extant leafhopper subfamilies and are placed in Burmotettiginae subfam. nov. Extinct Cretaceous fossils previously placed in Ledrinae and Signoretiinae are recovered as sister to modern representatives of these groups. Eomegophthalmus Dietrich and Gonçalves from Baltic amber consistently groups with a lineage comprising treehoppers, Megophthalminae, Ulopinae, and Eurymelinae but its position is unstable. Overall, the morphology-based phylogenetic estimates agree with recent phylogenies based on molecular data alone suggesting that morphological traits recently used to diagnose subfamilies are generally informative of phylogenetic relationships within this group. 

Abstract The use of gDNAs isolated from museum specimens for high throughput sequencing, especially targeted sequencing in the context of phylogenetics, is a common practice. Yet, little understanding has been focused on comparing the quality of DNA and results of sequencing museum DNAs. Dragonflies and damselflies are ubiquitous in freshwater ecosystems and are commonly collected and preserved insects in museum collections hence their use in this study. However, the history of odonate preservation across time and museums has resulted in wide variability in the success of viable DNA extraction, necessitating an assessment of their usefulness in genetic studies. Using Anchored Hybrid Enrichment probes, we sequenced DNA from samples at 2 museums, 48 from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in NYC, USA and 46 from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (RMNH) in Leiden, Netherlands ranging from global collection localities and across a 120-year time span. We recovered at least 4 loci out of an >1,000 locus probe set for all samples, with the average capture being ~385 loci (539 loci on average when a clade of ambiguous taxa omitted). Neither specimen age nor size was a good predictor of locus capture, but recapture rates differed significantly between museums. Samples from the AMNH had lower overall locus capture than the RMNH, perhaps due to differences in specimen storage over time.