- Meganeuropsis
-
Meganeuropsis
Temporal range: Early PermianScientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: †Meganisoptera Family: Meganeuridae Genus: Meganeuropsis
Carpenter, 1939Species - M. americana
- M. permiana
Meganeuropsis is an extinct genus of griffenfly, order Protodonata, known from the Early Permian of North America, and represents the biggest known insect of all times. The genus includes two described species:
Meganeuropsis permiana described in 1937 from Elmo in Kansas. It was the largest insect that ever lived, with a reconstructed wing length of 330 mm, a wingspan of up to 28 inches (710 mm), and a body length from head to tail of almost 17 inches (430 mm).[1]
Meganeuropsis americana, discovered in Oklahoma in 1940, is most probably a junior synonym of Meganeuropsis permiana[2][3]. It is represented by the largest complete insect wing ever found, which is conserved and displayed in the Harvard Museum of Natural History.[4] The preserved part of this forewing is 280 mm long and it had an estimated total length of 305 mm. The resulting wing span was reconstructed as 27 inches (690 mm).
References
- ^ Mitchell, F.L. and Lasswell, J. (2005): A dazzle of dragonflies Texas A&M University Press, 224 pages: page 47. Google Books
- ^ Zessin, W. (2008): Überblick über die paläozoischen Libellen (Insecta, Odonatoptera). Virgo, 11(1): 5-32 PDF
- ^ Grimaldi, D.A. and Engel, M.S. (2005): Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press, 755 pp. Google Books
- ^ "Dragonfly: the largest complete insect wing ever found", Harvard Magazine November-December 2007:112. PDF
This prehistoric arthropod-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
