First record of herbivory on Lycopodiaceae (Lycopodiales) by a dipteran (Pallopteridae) leaf/stem-miner

Abstract

Evidence for herbivory on early vascular plants in the Paleozoic has recently been accumulated from trace fossils and coprolites (Edwards et al. 1995; Labandeira 1998), although it is not well understood which arthropods were true herbivores during the Paleozoic. The great diversity of extant herbivorous insects was thought to have originated in the Cretaceous, when the adaptive radiation of angiosperms occurred; thus, it would be intriguing to find ancient plant–herbivore interactions on extant primeval vascular plants. In this paper, I report a unique dipteran fly associated with a species of the class Lycopsida as the first record of non-lepidopteran herbivory on the extant plant order Lycopodiales.