Data from: Transoceanic origin of microendemic and flightless New Caledonian weevils

The origin of the astonishing New Caledonian biota continues to fuel a heated debate among advocates of a Gondwanan relict scenario and defenders of late oceanic dispersal. Here we study the origin of New Caledonian Trigonopterus flightless weevils using a multimarker molecular phylogeny. We infer two independent clades of species found in the archipelago. Our dating estimates suggest a late Miocene origin of both clades long after the re-emergence of New Caledonia about 37 million years ago. The estimation of ancestral ranges supports an ancestral origin of the genus in a combined region encompassing Australia and New Guinea with subsequent colonisations of New Caledonia out of New Guinea in the mid-Miocene. The two New Caledonian lineages have had very different evolutionary trajectories. Colonizers belonging to a clade of foliage dwellers greatly diversified whereas species inhabiting leaf-litter have been less successful.