DOI: 10.5061/dryad.v15dv4283
title: Data from: From setae to scales: Burmese amber fossils reveal the early Cretaceous innovation of body coverings in scaly crickets

description: Scales have evolved independently in multiple insect orders, contributing
 to color diversity through both pigmentary and structural mechanisms.
 Within Orthoptera, the subfamily Mogoplistinae (Grylloidea: Mogoplistidae)
 represents the sole lineage bearing specialized scales, yet the
 evolutionary origins of this unique body covering remain poorly
 understood. Here, we report four new species critical to resolving this
 question: Protomogoplistes ciliatus sp. nov., Crinitipes calvus gen. et
 sp. nov., Burmamogoplistes acutifolius gen. et sp. nov., and Angustisquama
 bicolor gen. et sp. nov. We demonstrate that Mogoplistinae scales are
 derived from modified setae, and our results reveal that scale evolution
 in Mogoplistidae followed an "innovation-first, radiation-later"
 trajectory, with this key innovation emerging by the mid-Cretaceous. The
 development of scales likely served as a pivotal driver, facilitating
 Mogoplistinae's subsequent ecological diversification.
description: # Data from: From setae to scales: Burmese amber fossils reveal the early
 Cretaceous innovation of body coverings in scaly crickets Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.v15dv4283](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v15dv4283) ##
 Description of the data and file structure \# Supplementary Data for the
 manuscript titled: "From setae to scales: Burmese amber fossils
 reveal the Early Cretaceous innovation of body coverings in scaly
 crickets." The dataset comprises the following components: 1\. Tree
 files and corresponding R scripts necessary for ancestral state
 reconstruction; 2\. Phylogenetic morphospace tree files with associated R
 scripts; 3\. TNT and NEX format files used for phylogenetic analysis \##
 The Ancestral_state_reconstruction folder contains the following files:
 1\. morphology.nex.con.tre.phy (phylogenetic tree file based on tip-dating
 using the morphological matrix) 2\. total.nex.con.tre.phy (phylogenetic
 tree file based on total-evidence matrix) 3\. time_tree.R (R script for
 visualizing divergence time trees) 4\. morphology_ancestral.R (R script
 for ancestral state reconstruction of body covering states using the
 phylogeny based on morphological data) 5\. total_ancestral.R (R script for
 ancestral state reconstruction of body covering states using the
 total-evidence phylogeny) 6\. distribution_ancestral_morph.R (R script for
 ancestral state reconstruction of body covering distribution using the
 phylogeny based on morphological data) 7\. distribution_ancestral_total.R
 (R script for ancestral state reconstruction of body covering distribution
 using the total-evidence phylogeny) For ancestral state reconstruction
 analysis, either script can be used by modifying the input tree file
 accordingly. \## The Phylogenetic_morphospace folder contains the
 following files: 1\. ages.txt (age information for taxa) 2\.
 char_dependent.txt (trait dependencies for the HSJ method) 3\.
 morphology.nex.con.tre.phy (a phylogenetic tree file based on tip-dating
 using the morphological matrix) 4\. total.nex.con.tre.phy (a phylogenetic
 tree file based on total-evidence matrix) 5\. morphology_char.nex (the
 morphological character matrix) 6\. morphospace_morphology.R (R script for
 phylogenetic morphospace and related analyses) To perform phylogenetic
 morphospace analysis, simply modify the input tree file as needed. \## The
 phylogenetic_analysis folder contains the following files: 1\.
 morphology_with_time.nex (the morphological matrix for tip-dating
 analysis) 2\. morphology_without_time.nex (the morphological matrix for
 bayesian inference) 3\. total_evidence.nex （the total evidence matrix for
 tip-dating analysis) 4\. tnt.tnt (the morphological matrix for TNT) ###
 Files and variables #### File: script-2025.09.22.zip
 **Description:** including phylogenetic matrices, tree files, R scripts
 for ancestral state reconstruction and phylogenetic morphospace analyses,
 and TNT input files ## Code/software R v4.3.1 The R scripts provided in
 the ‘Ancestral_state_reconstruction’ and ‘Phylogenetic_morphospace’
 folders can be run in R or RStudio. They load the input tree files (e.g.,
 ‘morphology.nex.con.tre.phy’) and perform ancestral state reconstructions
 (using maximum likelihood or stochastic mapping) and phylogenetic
 morphospace projections. Users should modify the file paths in the scripts
 to match their local directory structure. MrBayes v3.2.7 Used for Bayesian
 phylogenetic inference under the Mk model with gamma-distributed rate
 variation and fossil tip-dating. Input files: ‘morphology_with_time.nex’,
 ‘total_evidence.nex’ (formatted with MrBayes blocks). TNT 1.6 Used for
 maximum parsimony analysis of the morphological dataset. Input file:
 ‘tnt.tnt’ (contains character matrix and analysis commands).