Béthoux recently identified the species †Adiphlebia lacoana Scudder from the Carboniferous of Mazon Creek, Ill., USA as the oldest beetle. The fossils bear coriaceous tegmina with pseudo-veins allegedly aligned with "rows of cells" as they occur in Permian beetles and extant Archostemata. The examination of four new specimens of †Adiphlebia lacoana from the same locality revealed that the "cells" are in fact clumps of clay inside a delicate meshwork, and no derived features shared with Coleoptera or Coleopterida (= Coleoptera + Strepsiptera) were found. Instead, †Adiphlebia lacoana bears veinal fusions and braces similar to extant Neuroptera. These features support a placement in †Strephocladidae, and are also similar to conditions found in †Tococladidae. These unplaced basal holometabolan families were erroneously re-analyzed as ancestral Mantodea and Orthoptera. Homologization of the wing pairs in neopteran lineages is updated and identification errors are corrected. A new Permian beetle family †Moravocoleidae [†Protocoleoptera (= Permian Coleoptera with pointed unpaired ovipositor; e.g., †Tshekardocoleidae)] is described., Jarmila Kukalová-Peck, Rolf G. Beutel., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
A phylogenetic analysis of the four coleopteran suborders (Polyphaga, Archostemata, Myxophaga and Adephaga), four other endoneopteran taxa (Strepsiptera, Neuropterida, Mecopterida and Hymenoptera) and three neopteran outgroups (Orthoneoptera, Blattoneoptera and Hemineoptera) is performed based on 63 characters of hind wing venation, articulation and folding patterns, with character states coded for the groundplan of each taxon (not for exemplar genera or species). The shortest tree found using Winclada with Nona exhibits the following topology: Orthoneoptera + (Blattoneoptera + (Hemineoptera + Endoneoptera: (Hymenoptera + ((Neuropterida + Mecopterida) + (Coleoptera + Strepsiptera))))). Homologization of the hind wing venation in Coleoptera is reviewed and updated, and comments are made concerning recent works on wing folding. Recent phylogenetic schemes proposed for the orders of Endoneoptera and suborders of Coleoptera are reviewed and their supporting evidence critically examined. The special role and influence of the hind wing anojugal lobe on the diversification of Neoptera and Endoneoptera is discussed. A scenario is proposed for the origin and evolution of the insect hind wing.
The unusual wing characters of the Permian insect Permostridulus brongniarti gen. n., sp. n. justifies the creation of a new family, the Permostridulidae fam. n., within the Panorthoptera. Phylogenetic relationships with the extinct order Caloneurodea, related to the Orthoptera (crickets, grasshoppers), are assumed. This assumption suggests an occurrence of the Permostridulidae at least since the Upper Carboniferous. The most prominent feature of the wing venation is a stridulatory apparatus, nonhomologous with those previously known in "panorthopterid" lineages. This is the oldest recorded sound-producing device of an animal.