With nearly 100,000 species, the Acercaria (lice, plant lices, thrips, bugs) including number of economically important species is one of the most successful insect lineages. However, its phylogeny and evolution of mouthparts among other issues remain debatable. Here new methods of preparation permitted the comprehensive anatomical description of insect inclusions from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber in astonishing detail. These "missing links" fossils, attributed to a new order Permopsocida, provide crucial evidence for reconstructing the phylogenetic relationships in the Acercaria, supporting its monophyly, and questioning the position of Psocodea as sister group of holometabolans in the most recent phylogenomic study. Permopsocida resolves as sister group of Thripida + Hemiptera and represents an evolutionary link documenting the transition from chewing to piercing mouthparts in relation to suction feeding. Identification of gut contents as angiosperm pollen documents an ecological role of Permopsocida as early pollen feeders with relatively unspecialized mouthparts. This group existed for 185 million years, but has never been diverse and was superseded by new pollenivorous pollinators during the Cretaceous co-evolution of insects and flowers. The key innovation of suction feeding with piercing mouthparts is identified as main event that triggered the huge post-Carboniferous radiation of hemipterans, and facilitated the spreading of pathogenic vectors.

AgroParisTech Paris France

ANKA Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Eggenstein Leopoldshafen Germany

Arthropoda Laboratory Palaeontological Institute Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow Russia

Charles University Faculty of Science Department of Zoology Prague Czech Republic

Division of Entomology Natural History Museum and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Kansas Lawrence Kansas United States of America

Division of Invertebrate Zoology American Museum of Natural History New York New York United States of America

Im Königsfeld 22A Saarbrücken Germany

Institut de Systématique Évolution Biodiversité Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle Paris France

Laboratory for Applications of Synchrotron Radiation Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Karlsruhe Germany

Lebanese University Faculty of Sciences 2 Department of Biology Beirut Lebanon

Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart Stuttgart Germany

State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology Chinese Academy of Sciences Nanjing People's Republic of China

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The earliest beetle with mouthparts specialized for feeding on nectar is a parasitoid of mid-Cretaceous Hymenoptera

New dustywings (Neuroptera, Coniopterygidae) from mid-Cretaceous amber of Myanmar reveal spectacular diversity

Redefining the extinct orders Miomoptera and Hypoperlida as stem acercarian insects