Historical use of substrate-borne acoustic production within the Hemiptera: first record for an Australian Lophopid (Hemiptera, Lophopidae)

Here the first record of communication through substrate-borne vibrations for the Lophopidae family is reported. The signals from Magia subocellata that the authors recorded were short calls with a decreasing frequency modulation. Acoustic vibrations have been observed for other families within the Hemiptera and a scenario concerning the historical use of vibrational communication within the Hemiptera is tested using a phylogenetic inference. The most parsimonious hypothesis suggests that substrate-borne communication is ancestral for the hemipteran order and highlights the groups for which future acoustic research should be undertaken.