Connecticut Entomological Society
523rd Meeting Minutes
November 20, 2015
University of Connecticut
BioPhysics Building, Room 130
91 North Eagleville Road
Storrs, CT 06269
Pre-meeting pizza dinner was held at Willington Pizza House at 6pm.
Business meeting: President Stan Malcolm called the meeting to order at
approximately 7:45pm.
Reports: Minutes from the 522nd meeting were presented by substitute
Secretary (Laura Saucier) and approved as read.
The treasurer’s report was read by Treasurer Mike Montgomery and approved.
Mike reported that as of 11/18/15 only 21 members had paid dues.
Old Business:
 Stan discussed photography “points of interest”
New Business:
 New members receive a cap
Announcements:
 Four guests were in attendance
 Updates from the recent ESA meeting were available for those interested
 Raul Ferreira announced that he has an entire series of entomological
journals from Portugal. If anyone is interested in them, email him.
Exhibits:
 Chris Maier brought a publication on Huron Mountain
 Kirby Stafford brought in pinned specimens of Membracids
Evening Presentation:
The evening presentation was by Cera Fisher who is a Ph.D. student at UConn.
Her talk was titled, Gene expression, development, and the origin of the
treehopper “helmet”.
Cryptic morphology is common among arthropods, but treehoppers are masters of
masquerade. The 3000-odd species of Membracidae have evolved a hypervariable
pronotum or “helmet” that assumes a variety of forms mimicking leaf litter, caterpillar frass,
plant thorns, and ants. Leafhoppers (Cicadellidae) are the most closely related taxon to
Membracidae that lacks a helmet. They diverged from treehoppers ca. 30 million years
ago. In leafhoppers, the pronotum retains the ancestral condition: short, collarlike, and flush
with the mesonotum. Despite hot debate in recent years, the developmental genetics and
origin of the treehopper helmet remain a mystery. Evidence from gene expression in
treehoppers and RNA interference in other insects suggest that co-option of canonical wingpatterning genes may be involved, while evidence from anatomically similar beetle pronotal
horns suggest the possibility of leg-patterning gene co-option. To test these and other
hypotheses, she applied an RNAseq approach to analyzing gene expression in four tissues
of nymphal Entylia carinata (Membracidae) and Homalodisca vitripennis (Cicadellidae). She
uses these data to identify patterns of similarity and divergence of gene expression across
tissue types, and to test whether the origin of the treehopper helmet was accompanied by a
shift towards more leg-like or wing-like development, as predicted by the co-option
hypothesis.
Note: corrections and additions to the minutes are welcomed. Please email
ctentsoc@gmail.com.