Emiliana (Hemiptera)

Emiliana is an extinct genus of planthopper in the Tropiduchidae tribe Emilianini and containing the single species Emiliana alexandri. The species is known only from the Middle Eocene Parachute Member, part of the Green River Formation, in the Piceance Creek Basin, Garfield County, northwestern Colorado, USA.

Emiliana alexandri is known only from one fossil, the part and counterpart holotype, specimen number "PIN no. 4621/546". The specimen is composed of a single isolated tegmen which is preserved as a compression fossil in sedimentary rock. The fossil was recovered by David Kohls of Colorado Mountain College and A. P. Rasnitsyn of the Russian Academy of Sciences from outcrops of the Green River Formations Parachute Member exposed in the Anvil Points area of Garfield County, Colorado, USA. The type specimen is currently preserved in the paleoentomology collections housed in the Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, located in Moscow, Russia. Emiliana was first studied by Dmitry Shcherbakov of the Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences with his 2006 type description of the tribe, genus and species being published in the Russian Entomological Journal. The generic name was coined by Shcherbakov in recognition of the world authority in planthoppers, A. F. Emeljanov, with the tribe name being a derivative of the genus name. The etymology of the specific epithet alexandri is in reference to Emeljanov's first name Alexandr.