Up to now, troglobitic Auchenorrhyncha identified for Europe outside of the Macaronesian region include two species belonging to the Cixiidae family. In this context, Sicily is a very interesting island because there are both limestone caves an lava tubes that allow the presence of at least two obligately cave dwelling species belonging to Ibleocixius D'Urso & Grasso 2009 and Cixius Latreilles 1804 genera. Ibleocixius is a troglobitic genus, endemic from Sicily with a unique species, Ibleocixius dunae D’Urso & Grasso 2009, living in a limestone cave of South-estern Sicily. Recently, a new troglobitic taxon (under description) has been found in some lava tubes on the Etna volcano; it belongs to the genus Cixius, to the C. pallipes-wagneri group. Both species live on the roots that penetrate the caves. They have a different palaeogeographic history. Ibleocixius dunae is a paleoendemic taxon showing a strong degree of troglomorphy, and the genus differs from Cixius and related taxa in the different arrangement of several characters which are also present in other taxa. Cixius n.sp. is a neoendemic taxon showing morphological characters close to those of the epigean species Cixius wagneri (Holzinger et al. 2003).

Troglobitic species, Cixiidae, limestone caves, lava tubes, Sicily

Vera D'Urso

V^th International Congress on Biodiversity: „Taxonomy, Speciation and Euro-Mediterranean Biodiversity"