Tribe Idiocerini

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)

Class Insecta (Insects)

Order Hemiptera (True Bugs, Cicadas, Hoppers, Aphids and Allies)

Suborder Auchenorrhyncha (True Hoppers)

Infraorder Cicadomorpha (Cicadas, Spittlebugs, Leafhoppers, and Treehoppers)

Superfamily Membracoidea (Leafhoppers and Treehoppers)

Family Cicadellidae (Typical Leafhoppers)

Subfamily Eurymelinae

Tribe Idiocerini

Remarks

"I think it is best to continue using a broad concept of Idiocerus for the North American fauna for a couple of reasons. One is that the North American fauna was not considered when the divisions were made and I don’t think all of our taxa fit neatly in the concepts based on European species or that the species left in Idiocerus after splitting off Populicerus etc. are closely related to I. stigmaticalis (the type of Idiocerus). Second, the generic concepts used in Europe were not based on cladistic analysis, and even the smaller genera used in Europe may not monophyletic. Xue et al.’s phylogeny of the Eurymelinae (attached) had limited taxon sampling, but their tree shows Tremulicerus and Populicerus as paraphyletic. I think a thorough generic revision of the tribe is needed and prefer to keep using the combinations already in the North American literature until then. I don’t have a problem with European workers splitting up the genus as it will probably be needed once the tribe is revised, and I think it’s best to follow them for European species (eg. Acericerus ribauti)." — Joel Kits personal communication to Solomon Hendrix

See forum topic here