How Gerarus lost its head: stem-group Orthoptera and Paraneoptera revisited

doi:10.1111/j.1365-3113.2008.00419.x

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Systems Maintenance, Monday, 15th March 2010

Wiley InterScience

Systematic Entomology

Volume 33 Issue 3, Pages 529 - 547

Published Online: 28 Jun 2008

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How Gerarus lost its head: stem-group Orthoptera and Paraneoptera revisited

OLIVIER BÉTHOUX ^1,* DEREK E. G. BRIGGS ²

¹ State Natural History Collections of Dresden, Museum of Zoology, Dresden, Germany and ²Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.

Correspondence to Derek E. G. Briggs, Department of Geology & Geophysics, Yale University, PO Box 208109, New Haven, CT 06520-8109, U.S.A. E-mail: derek.briggs@yale.edu

*Present address: Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, Institute of Geology, Department of Palaeontology, Bernhard-von-Cotta Str. 2, D-09596 Freiberg, Germany.

ABSTRACT

Abstract. The Upper Carboniferous insect Gerarus from Mazon Creek was reinvestigated to assess the affinities of the Geraridae. Specimens were examined using an environmental scanning electron microscope. The evidence, including an inflated clypeus and characters of the wing venation, for placing the family in Paraneoptera (hemipteroids) is equivocal; Gerarus is assigned to the Archaeorthoptera in the stem-group Orthoptera. The presence of leg exites in Gerarus and other Mazon Creek specimens could not be confirmed. Definitive evidence for the origin of insect wings remains to be discovered.

Accepted 24 November 2007
First published online 3 April 2008

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1365-3113.2008.00419.x About DOI