Troglobitic Fulgoromorpha in the Americas

Worldwide, there are 70 described species of cave-dwelling Fulgoromorpha (Le Cesne et al. 2024), and out of the 20 species described for the Americas, 15 belong to the family Cixiidae Spinola, 1839 (Table 1). This accounts for approximately one third of all cave-dwelling cixiids worldwide, which totals to 45 species (Le Cesne et al. 2024). While N. sensitivus was the first troglobitic Fulgoromorpha species described for South America, it was the seventh cave planthopper species documented on the American continent (Table 1). It was also the fourth of the eight present genus with troglobitic species described for the American continent (Fig. 10). Fennah (1973 – 1980) made the initial contributions by describing species from Mexico and Hawaii. Subsequently, Hoch & Izquierdo (1996), Hoch (1988), Hoch & Howarth (1999) and Hoch et al. (2024) described several species from Galapagos, Hawaii, and Mexico, respectively. In the past decade, significant progress has been made in inventorying the troglobitic planthopper fauna of South America, with the description of five species in Brazil, distributed among the families Cixiidae (3) and Kinnaridae (2) (Table 1).