Cicada season is dawning across the eastern US, this time with Brood XIV resurfacing for the first time since 2008. While true cicadas (the larger of the two existing cicada families) are one of the most diverse insect groups today, not much is known about their earliest ancestors. “There are only very few fossil [cicada] finds compared to the large number of modern species,” explained study co-author Sonja Wedmann. “Within this family, the Platypleurini group is particularly striking—it has a wide distribution and contains many different species with special characteristics. The discovery of E. messelensis does more than simply set a new record as the earliest-known true cicada.