| Palæos: |  |
Insecta |
| INVERTEBRATES | Diaphanopterodea |
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| Palæos: | |
Insecta |
| INVERTEBRATES | Diaphanopterodea |
| Page Back | Unit Home | Page Next | Page Up | Unit Up | Cladogram |
This order of paleopterous insects are known especially from the Permian of Russia and North America, but would certainly have had a wider distribution. They resembled mosquitoes in size, suctoral mouthparts, and structure, the head being armed with a beak with piecing mouthparts, and they may have been blood-sucking forms like some Diptera.
The fore and hind wings were similar, with the R vein was bent back at the base in the fore-wings, less so in the hind wings. The main veins were closely aligned in the basal part of the wing. As with the neoptera, these insects were able to fold their wings back over the top of their abdomen, but the mechanism of folding is not clear. They constitute a separate neopterous development that is unrelated to the true Neoptera.
The Diaphanopterodea most probably evolved from the Megasecoptera (they have been considered a suborder by one authority, but is most certainly a distinct order)
Order DiaphanopterodeaHabitat: widespread food: blood-sucking, external parasites on tetrapods? predators: arachnids, predatory insects, tetrapods, early reptiles Stratigraphic range: Carboniferous (Moscovian) to Permian (Gaudalupian) Known geographic range: Northern Pangea (most certainly in the south as well) |
E. F. Reik, 1970, "Fossil History", in Insects of Australia, Melbourne University Press, p.175
Terrestrial Ecosystems
Through Time - p.272
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