1988] 
Heie & Poinar — Fossil aphid 
161 
emarginated as in Paoliella, but both similarities between Mindaze- 
rius and Lizerius are plesiomorphies, so that they do not indicate 
that Mindazerius+ Lizerius is the sister group of Paoliella. The 
bilobed anal plate and the knobbed cauda of the recent genera of 
Lizerini are to the contrary probably synapomorphies showing that 
Mindazerius is the sister group of Lizerius + Paoliella. 
Quednau (1974) discussed the phylogenetic relationships of the 
Lizerini and concluded that the tribe can be placed nearer some 
other tribes of Drepanosiphidae (Neophylladini, Neuquenaphidini) 
than to Mindarus. 
Biology and Zoogeography 
It is impossible to determine the host plant of Mindazerius domin- 
icanus, but it is reasonable to assume that it was a woody 
angiosperm. 
Until the Cretaceous, aphids probably lived exclusively on gymno- 
sperms. The fossil record shows that an evolutionary radiation or 
“explosion” took place as soon as the angiosperms became the dom- 
inant group of higher plants. Most recent aphid families are repre- 
sented in the Cretaceous and Early Tertiary. The Adelgidae, the 
Mindaridae and some of the Drepanosiphidae, e.g. Neophyllaphis, 
did never give up gymnosperms (conifers) as their food sources and 
Prociphilus (Pemphigidae) retained conifers as secondary hosts, but 
the majority became associated with angiosperms. Some recent 
genera feeding on conifers today are descendants of aphids, which 
lived on angiosperms in the past, e.g. Elatobium (Aphididae) and 
Cinara (Lachnidae). 
The first Lizerini, among these Mindazerius, may have lived on 
conifers. Although no remains of conifers have yet been described 
fom Dominican amber, a pine ( Pinus Occident alis), juniper 
(Juniperus gracilior) and Podocarpus Buchii are indigenous species 
present today in the Dominican Republic (General Secretariat, 
1969). The former species covers some 215,500 hectares or 4.5% of 
the country with the heaviest stands in the Cordillera Central and 
Sierra de Bohoruco. 
, R is, however, more reasonable to assume that the host plant was 
a woody angiosperm because most recent groups of Drepanosiphi- 
dae feed on angiosperms, which are known from the Early Tertiary. 
The Drepanosiphidae was a dominant family in Early Tertiary, and 
