In New Zealand, 13 flightless species of endemic grasshopper are associated with alpine habitats and freeze tolerance. We examined the phylogenetic relationships of the New Zealand species and a subset of Australian alpine grasshoppers using DNA sequences from the entire mitochondrial genome, nuclear 45S rRNA and Histone H3 and H4 loci. Within our sampling, the New Zealand alpine taxa are monophyletic and sister to a pair of alpine Tasmanian grasshoppers. We used six Orthopteran fossils to calibrate a molecular clock analysis to infer that the most recent common ancestor of New Zealand and Tasmanian grasshoppers existed about 20 million years ago, before alpine habitat was available in New Zealand. We inferred a radiation of New Zealand grasshoppers ~13-15 Mya, suggesting alpine species diversification occurred in New Zealand well before the Southern Alps were formed by the mountain building events of the Kaikoura Orogeny 2-5 Mya. This would suggest that either the ancestors of today's New Zealand grasshoppers were not dependent on living in the alpine zone, or they diversified outside of New Zealand.

中文翻译：

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Aotearoa（新西兰）的 Kā Tiritiri o te Moana（南阿尔卑斯山）上比山脉更古老的高山蚱蜢辐射。

在新西兰，13 种不会飞的地方性蚱蜢与高山栖息地和耐冻性有关。我们使用来自整个线粒体基因组、核 45S rRNA 和组蛋白 H3 和 H4 基因座的 DNA 序列检查了新西兰物种和澳大利亚高山蚱蜢的一个子集的系统发育关系。在我们的抽样中，新西兰高山分类群是单系的，是一对高山塔斯马尼亚蚱蜢的姐妹。我们使用六块直翅目化石来校准分子钟分析，以推断新西兰和塔斯马尼亚蚱蜢最近的共同祖先存在于大约 2000 万年前，当时新西兰还没有高山栖息地。我们推断出新西兰蚱蜢的辐射~13-15 Mya，表明在南阿尔卑斯山由凯库拉造山运动 2-5 Mya 的造山事件形成之前，新西兰就发生了高山物种多样化。这表明，今天新西兰蚱蜢的祖先不依赖于生活在高山地区，或者它们在新西兰以外的地方多样化。