Thrips, Thysanoptera (Paraneoptera), are an enigmatic order of minute insects that display a wide range of ecologies, behaviours, and feeding strategies. Investigating the origins of these traits in thrips has been previously been hampered by the lack of support for early relationships in phylogenies. We report a 2002 orthologous nuclear loci dated phylogeny of 57 thrips taxa, covering 5 of 9 families. Our data supports previous hypotheses on a monophyletic Tubulifera and Terebrantia, on Merothripidae being sister to the rest of Tubulifera, and provides new evidence towards Idolothripinae diverging earlier than previously thought. We then compare and contrast the results with previous morphological and molecular phylogenies before examining the implications of this phylogeny on the evolution of traits such as feeding strategies. We provide evidence towards multiple independent evolutions of feeding strategies in thrips and provide comment on how this small order can answer big evolutionary questions.
