The Evolution of the Scorpion-Flies and Their Derivatives (Order Mecoptera)

Abstract

Recent discoveries in fossil insects have served to bring into considerable prominence the small and previously greatly neglected Order Mecoptera, or Scorpion-flies. At the present time, this Order is one of the smallest of all insect Orders, less than 200 species having been described from all parts of the world. Fossil representatives of the Order have long been known from the Liassic and Upper Jurassic of Europe; but it was not until 1916 that I described the first Triassic form (Tillyard, 1916). This was followed in 1918 (Tillyard, 1918) by the description of the first Upper Permian form, and in 1926 (Tillyard, 1926a) by the account of the Lower Permian Mecoptera from Kansas. Since that time, valuable papers have been published by Martynov (1927, 1928, 1930) describing Mecoptera from the Upper Permian and Jurassic of various parts of Russia, Turkestan and Siberia, and by F. M. Carpenter (1930) on the Lower Permian fauna of Kansas, while I have added further records from the Upper Permian and Upper Trias of Australia (Tillyard, 1917, 1919a, 1919b, 1926b) and have also, quite recently, revised the rich Liassic material in the British Museum in a paper which should be in print shortly before this (Tillyard, 1933). I have also (Tillyard, 1926a, p. 161) indicated the reasons for considering Metropator pusillus Handl. to be a true member of the Order Mecoptera, although this wing is one of the eight oldest known fossil insect wings yet discovered, its age being Lower Upper Carboniferous (Lower Pottsville Series).