Eur. J. Entomol. 109 (4): 633-645, 2012 | DOI: 10.14411/eje.2012.075
Is the Carboniferous †Adiphlebia lacoana really the "oldest beetle"? Critical reassessment and description of a new Permian beetle family
- 1 Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada; e-mail: jarmila_peck@carleton.ca
- 2 Entomology Group, Institut für Spezielle Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie mit Phyletischem Museum, FSU Jena, Erbertstrasse 1, 07743 Jena, Germany; e-mail: rolf.beutel@uni-jena.de
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.
An Erratum has been published for this article: https://doi.org/10.14411/eje.2013.027
Keywords: Oldest beetle, Coleoptera, †Adiphlebia, †Strephocladidae, †Tococladidae, fossils, Neoptera, †Moravocoleidae fam. n.
Received: February 29, 2012; Revised: May 10, 2012; Accepted: May 10, 2012; Published: October 5, 2012 Show citation
ACS | AIP | APA | ASA | Harvard | Chicago | Chicago Notes | IEEE | ISO690 | MLA | NLM | Turabian | Vancouver |
References
- BAIRD G.C. 1997: Francis Creek diagenetic events. In Shabica C.W. & Hay A.A. (eds): Richardson's Guide to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek. Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, pp. 30-34
- BETHOUX O. 2009: The oldest beetle identified. J. Paleontol. 83: 931-937
Go to original source...
- BETHOUX O. & BRIGGS E.G. 2008: How Gerarus lost its head: stem-group Orthoptera and Paraneoptera revisited. Syst. Entomol. 33: 529-547
Go to original source...
- BETHOUX O., NEL A., GALTIER J., LAPEYRIE J. & GAND G. 2003: A new species of Tococladidae Carpenter 1966 from the Permian of France (Insecta: Archeorthoptera). Geobios 36: 275-283
Go to original source...
- BETHOUX O., BECKEMEYER R.J., ENGEL M.S. & HALL J.D. 2010: New data on Homocladus grandis, a Permian stem-mantodean (Polyneoptera: Dictyoptera). J. Paleontol. 84: 746-753
Go to original source...
- BEUTEL R.G. & HAAS F. 2000: Phylogenetic relationships of the suborders of Coleoptera (Insecta). Cladistics 16: 103-141
Go to original source...
- BEUTEL R.G., GE S.-Q. & HORNSCHEMEYER T. 2008: On the head morphology of Tetraphalerus, the phylogeny of Archostemata and the basal branching events in Coleoptera. Cladistics 24: 270-298
Go to original source...
- BEUTEL R.G., FRIEDRICH F., HORNSCHEMEYER T., POHL H., HUNEFELD F., BECKMANN F., MEIER R., MISOF B., WHITING M.F. & VILHEMSEN L. 2011: Morphological and molecular evidence converging upon a robust phylogeny of the megadiverse Holometabola. Cladistics 26: 1-15
Go to original source...
- CARPENTER F.M. 1992: Superclass Hexapoda. In Kaesler R.L. (ed.): Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology (4). The Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas, Boulder, xxii + 655 pp
- FRIEDRICH F. & BEUTEL R.G. 2008: The thorax of Zorotypus (Hexapoda, Zoraptera) and a new nomenclature for the musculature of Neoptera. Arthr. Str. Dev. 37: 29-54
Go to original source...
- FRIEDRICH F., FARELL B.D. & BEUTEL R.G. 2009: The thoracic morphology of Archostemata and the relationships of the extant suborders of Coleoptera (Hexapoda). Cladistics 25: 1-37
Go to original source...
- GRIMALDI D. & ENGEL M.S. 2005: Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press, New York, 755 pp
- HAAS F. & KUKALOVA-PECK J. 2001: Dermaptera hindwing structure and folding: new evidence for familial, ordinal and superordinal relationships within Neoptera (Insecta). Eur. J. Entomol. 98: 445-509
Go to original source...
- KUKALOVA J. 1965: Permian Protelytroptera, Coleoptera and Protorthoptera of Moravia. Sborn. Geolog. Ved (P) 6: 61-98
- KUKALOVA J. 1969: On the systematic position of the supposed Permian beetles Tshekardocoleidae with a description of a new collection from Moravia. Sborn. Geolog. Ved (P) 11: 139-162
- KUKALOVA-PECK J. 1991: Fossil history and the evolution of hexapod structures In C.S.I.R.O. (ed.): Insects of Australia. A Textbook for Students and Research Workers. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Melbourne University Press, Carlton, pp. 141-179
- KUKALOVA-PECK J. 1997: Arthropod phylogeny and "basal" morphological structures. In Fortey R.A. & Thomas R.H. (eds): Arthropod Relationships. Chapman & Hall, London, pp. 249-268
Go to original source...
- KUKALOVA-PECK J. 2008: Phylogeny of higher taxa in Insecta: finding synapomorphies in the extinct fauna and separating them from homoplasies. Evol. Biol. 35: 4-51
Go to original source...
- KUKALOVA-PECK J. 2009: Carboniferous protodonatoid dragonfly nymphs and the synapomorphies of Odonatoptera and Ephemeroptera (Insecta: Palaeoptera). Palaeodiversity 2: 169-198
- KUKALOVA-PECK J. & LAWRENCE J.F. 1993: Evolution of the hind wing in Coleoptera. Can. Entomol. 125: 181-258
Go to original source...
- KUKALOVA-PECK J. & LAWRENCE J.F. 2004: Relationship among coleopteran suborders and major endoneopteran lineages: Evidence from hind wing characters. Eur. J. Entomol. 101: 95-144
Go to original source...
- KUKALOVA-PECK J. & WILLMANN R. 1990: Lower Permian "mecopteroid-like" insects from central Europe (Insecta, Endopterygota). Can. J. Earth Sci. 27: 459-468
Go to original source...
- KUKALOVA-PECK J., PETERS J.G. & SOLDAN T. 2009: Homologization of the articular plate in the wing base of Ephemeroptera and Odonatoptera. In Staniczek A.H. (ed.): International Perspectives in Mayfly and Stonefly Research. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Ephemeroptera and the 16th International Symposium on Plecoptera, Stuttgart, 2008. Aquat. Insects 31 (Suppl. 1): 459-470
Go to original source...
- MANTON S.M. 1977: The Arthropoda. Habits, Functional Morphology and Evolution. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 550 pp
- PONOMARENKO A.G. 1969: [Historical development of the Coleoptera - Archostemata]. Tr. Paleontol. Inst. Akad. Nauk SSSR 125: 1-240 [in Russian]
- SHEAR W.A. & KUKALOVA-PECK J. 1990: The ecology of Paleozoic terrestrial arthropods: The fossil evidence. Can. J. Zool. 68: 1807-1934
Go to original source...
- WIEGMANN B.M., TRAUTWEIN M.D., KIM J.-W., CASSEL B.K., BERTONE M.A., WINTERTON S.L. & YEATES D.K. 2009: Singlecopy nuclear genes resolve the phylogeny of the holometabolous insects. BMC Biolol. 7: 34
Go to original source...
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.