Current IF 1.9
Latest issue (RSS 2.0)
Contact Editorial Office at
bulletin@geology.cz

Bulletin of Geosciences
Published by ©
Czech Geological Survey,
W. Bohemia Museum Pilsen
Individual sponsors
ISSN: 1802-8225 (online),
1214-1119 (print)

Palaeozoic palaeodictyopteran insect nymphs with prominent ovipositors from a new locality
Published in: Bulletin of Geosciences, volume 94, issue 1; pages: 23 - 40; Received 15 June 2018; Accepted in revised form 5 March 2019; Online 31 March 2019
Keywords: Palaeodictyopteroidea, nymphal development, Carboniferous, Moscovian, Piesberg quarry, Rochdalia,
Abstract
Palaeodictyopteran insects (ingroup of Palaeodictyopteroidea) are exclusively fossil palaeopterous insects, representing an important faunal component in the late Palaeozoic. Fossils of palaeodictyopteran insects are still rather rare, and especially their ontogeny is still very incompletely known. Here new findings of palaeodictyopteran nymphs from the Piesberg quarry, Osnabrück, are reported. The examined specimens include three more or less complete specimens and three nymphal terga with pronounced wing anlagen of which one shows both meso- and metanotal wing anlagen, and the other two represent isolated mesonota. These findings most likely represent an ontogenetic sequence. The specimens described herein are of the Rochdalia-type of palaeodictyopteran nymphs, being extremely similar to these especially concerning the pronotum, wing anlagen and abdomen morphology. As a remarkable observation, the here described, very complete fossils possess large posterior pointing structures. These are interpreted as ovipositors. The pattern of wing anlagen development and the presence of a large ovipositor support the supposed gradualness of the development of palaeodictyopteran insects. The massiveness and morphology of the ovipositor furthermore indicates that eggs were laid into plants and were most likely rather large and yolk-rich.References
Béthoux, O., Voigt, S. & Schneider, J.W. 2010. A Triassic palaeodictyopteran from Kyrgyzstan. Palaeodiversity 3, 9-13.
Brauckmann, C. 1991. Morphologie und Variabilität von Homoioptera vorhallensis (Insecta: Palaeodictyoptera; Ober-Karbon). Geologica et Palaeontologica 25, 193-213.
Brauckmann, C. 1995. Neue Insekten-Funde (Palaeodictyoptera: Breyeriidae) aus dem Ober-Karbon von Osnabrück (Deutschland). Osnabrücker Naturwissenschaftliche Mitteilungen 20, 157-165.
Brauckmann, C. & Hahn, G. 1978. Ein neuer Palaeodictyopteren-Fund aus dem westdeutschen Namurium. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 52, 13-18.
Brauckmann, C. & Herd, K.J. 2002. Insekten-Funde aus dem Westfalium D (Ober-Karbon) des Piesberges bei Osnabrück (Deutschland). Teil 1: Palaeoptera. Osnabrücker Naturwissenschaftliche Mitteilungen 28, 27-69.
Brauckmann, C., Herd, K.J. & Leipner, A. 2009. Insekten-Funde aus dem Westfalium D (Ober-Karbon) des Piesberges bei Osnabrück (Deutschland). Osnabrücker Naturwissenschaftliche Mitteilungen 35, 1-30.
Carpenter, F.M. 1948. The supposed nymphs of the Palaeodictyoptera. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 55, 41-50.
Carpenter, F.M. 1992. Superclass Hexapoda, 1-665. In Kaesler, R.L. (ed.) Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology: Pt. R, Arthropoda 4. Geological Society of America & University of Kansas Press, Boulder & Lawrence.
Carpenter, F.M. & Burnham, L. 1985. The geological record of insects. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 13, 297-314.
Dunlop, J.A., Brauckmann, C. & Steur, H. 2008. A Late Carboniferous fossil scorpion from the Piesberg, near Osnabrück, Germany. Fossil Record 11, 25-32.
Gegenbaur, C. 1878. Grundriss der vergleichenden Anatomie. 655 pp. Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig.
Grimaldi, D. & Engel, M.S. 2005. Evolution of the Insects. 755 pp. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Haug, C., Haug, J.T., Waloszek, D., Maas, A., Frattigiani, R. & Liebau, S. 2009. New methods to document fossils from lithographic limestones of southern Germany and Lebanon. Palaeontologia Electronica 12, 6T.
Haug, C., Mayer, G., Kutschera, V., Waloszek, D., Maas, A. & Haug, J.T. 2011. Imaging and documenting gammarideans. International Journal of Zoology, art. 380829.
Haug, C., Van Roy, P., Leipner, A., Funch, P., Rudkin, D.M., Schöllmann, L. & Haug, J.T. 2012. A holomorph approach to xiphosuran evolution-a case study on the ontogeny of Euproops. Development Genes and Evolution 222, 253-268.
Haug, J.T., Haug, C. & Ehrlich, M. 2008. First fossil stomatopod larva (Arthropoda: Crustacea) and a new way of documenting Solnhofen fossils (Upper Jurassic, Southern Germany). Palaeodiversity 1, 103-109.
Haug, J.T., Haug, C. & Garwood, R. 2016. Evolution of insect wings and development - new details from Palaeozoic nymphs. Biological Reviews 91, 53-69.
Haug, J.T., Leipner, A., Wappler, T. & Haug, C. 2013. Palaeozoic insect nymphs: new finds from the Piesberg quarry (Upper Carboniferous, Germany). Bulletin of Geosciences 88, 779-791.
Hörnig, M.K., Haug, C., Herd, K.J. & Haug, J.T. 2014. New insights into dictyopteran early development: smallest Palaeozoic roachoid nymph found so far. Palaeodiversity 7, 159-165.
Hörnig, M.K., Haug, C., Schneider, J.W. & Haug, J.T. 2018. Evolution of reproductive strategies in dictyopteran insects-clues from ovipositor morphology of extinct roachoids. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 63, 1-24.
Josten, K.H., Köwing, K. & Rabitz, A. 1984. Oberkarbon, 7-77. In Klassen, H. (ed.) Geologie des Osnabrücker Berglandes. Naturwissenschaftliches Museum, Osnabrück.
Kerp, H. & Bomfleur, B. 2011. Photography of plant fossils-new techniques, old tricks. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 166, 117-151.
Kukalová, J. 1969a. Revisional study of the order Palaeodictyoptera in the Upper Carboniferous shales of Commentry, France. Part I. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 76, 163-215.
Kukalová, J. 1969b. Revisional study of the order Palaeodictyoptera in the Upper Carboniferous shales of Commentry, France. Part II. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 76, 439-486.
Kukalová, J. 1970. Revisional study of the order Palaeodictyoptera in the Upper Carboniferous shales of Commentry, France. Part III. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 77, 1-44.
Kukalová-Peck, J. 1971. The structure of Dunbaria (Palaeodictyoptera). Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 78, 306-318.
Kukalová-Peck, J. 1972. Unusual structures in the Paleozoic insect orders Megasecoptera and Palaeodictyoptera, with a description of a new family. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 79, 243-268.
Kukalová-Peck, J. 1978. Origin and evolution of insect wings and their relation to metamorphosis, as documented by the fossil record. Journal of Morphology 156, 53-125.
Kukalová-Peck, J. & Peck, S.B. 1976. Adult and Immature Calvertiellidae (Insecta: Palaeodictyoptera) from the Upper Paleozoic of New Mexico and Czechoslovakia. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 83, 79-93.
Labandeira, C.C. & Phillips, T.L. 1996. Insect fluid-feeding on Upper Pennsylvanian tree ferns (Palaeodictyoptera, Marattiales) and the early history of the piercing-and-sucking functional feeding group. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 89, 157-183.
Labandeira, C.C., Beall, B.S. & Hueber, F.M. 1988. Early insect diversification: evidence from a Lower Devonian bristletail from Québec. Science 242, 913-916.
Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. 824 pp. Stockholm, Laurentius Salvius.
Martynov, A.V. 1923. On two basic types of insect wings and their significance for the general classification of insects, 88-89. In Deryugina, K.M. (ed.) Trudy Pervogo Vserossijskogo S’ezda Zoologov, Anatomov i Gistologov 1.
Nel, A., Roques, P., Nel, P., Prokin, A.A., Bourgoin, T., Prokop, J., Szwedo, J., Azar, D., Desutter-Grandcolas, L., Wappler, T., Garrouste, R., Coty, D., Huang, D., Engel, M.S. & Kirejtshuk, A.G. 2013. The earliest known holometabolous insects. Nature 503, 257-261.
Pecharová, M., Ren, D. & Prokop, J. 2015. A new palaeodictyopteroid (Megasecoptera: Brodiopteridae) from the Early Pennsylvanian of northern China reveals unique morphological traits and intra-specific variability. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 39, 236-249.
Prokop, J. & Ren, D. 2007. New significant fossil insects from the Upper Carboniferous of Ningxia in northern China (Palaeodictyoptera, Archaeorthoptera). European Journal of Entomology 104, 267-275.
Prokop, J., Pecharová, M., & Ren, D. 2016a. Hidden surface microstructures on Carboniferous insect Brodioptera sinensis (Megasecoptera) enlighten functional morphology and sensorial perception. Scientific Reports 6, 28316.
Prokop, J., Nel, A., Engel, M. S., Pecharova, M., & Hörnschemeyer, T. 2016b. New Carboniferous fossils of Spilapteridae enlighten postembryonic wing development in Palaeodictyoptera. Systematic Entomology 41, 178-190.
Prokop, J., Pecharová, M., Jarzembowski, E.A. & Ross, A.J. 2018. New palaeodictyopterans from the Late Carboniferous of the UK (Insecta: Palaeodictyopterida). Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 107, 99-107.
Prokop, J., Pecharová, M., Nel, A., Grey, M. & Hörnschemeyer, T. 2017a. A remarkable insect from the Pennsylvanian of the Joggins Formation in Nova Scotia, Canada: insights into unusual venation of Brodiidae and nymphs of Megasecoptera. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 15, 1051-1065.
Prokop, J., Pecharová, M., Nel, A., Hörnschemeyer, T., Krzemińska, E., Krzemiński, W. & Engel, M.S. 2017b. Paleozoic nymphal wing pads support dual model of insect wing origins. Current Biology 27, 263-269.
Prokop, J., Tippeltová, Z., Roques, P. & Nel, A. 2013. A new genus and species of Breyeriidae and wings of immature stages from the Upper Carboniferous, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France (Insecta: Palaeodictyoptera). Insect Systematics & Evolution 44, 117-128.
Rasnitsyn, A.P. 1981. A modified paranotal theory of insect wing origin. Journal of Morphology 168, 331-338.
Rasnitsyn, A.P. & Quicke, D.L. 2002. History of insects. 517 pp. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Richardson, E.S. 1956. Pennsylvanian invertebrates of the Mazon Creek area, Illinois. Insects. Fieldiana Geology 12, 15-56.
Rohdendorf, B.B. 1961. Subclass Pterygota, 69-88. In Rohdendorf, B.B., Becker-Migdisova, E.E., Martynova, O.M. & Sharov, A. (eds) Palaeozoic insects of the Kuznetsk Basin. Trudy Paleontologicheskogo Instituta Akademii nauk SSSR 85.
Rolfe, W.D.I. 1967. Rochdalia, a Carboniferous insect nymph. Palaeontology 10, 307-313.
Ross, A.J. 2010. A review of the Carboniferous fossil insects from Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology 46, 157-168.
Shcherbakov, D.E. 2011. The alleged Triassic palaeodictyopteran is a member of Titanoptera. Zootaxa 3044, 65-68.
Sroka, P., Staniczek, A.H. & Bechly, G. 2015. Revision of the giant pterygote insect Bojophlebia prokopi Kukalová-Peck, 1985 (Hydropalaeoptera: Bojophlebiidae) from the Carboniferous of the Czech Republic, with the first cladistic analysis of fossil palaeopterous insects. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 13, 963-982.
Tomoyasu, Y., Ohde, T. & Clark-Hachtel, C. 2017. What serial homologs can tell us about the origin of insect wings. F1000Research, 6.
Wootton, R.J. 1972. Nymphs of Palaeodictyoptera (Insecta) from the Westphalian of England. Palaeontology 15, 662-675.
Wootton, R.J. 1981. Palaeozoic insects. Annual Review of Entomology 26, 319-344.
Wootton, R.J. & Kukalová-Peck, J. 2000. Flight adaptations in Palaeozoic Palaeoptera (Insecta). Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 75, 129-167.
Zhang, J. 1999. Aeschnidiid nymphs from the Jehol biota (latest Jurassic-Early Cretaceous), China, with a discussion of the family Aeschnidiidae (Insecta, Odonata). Cretaceous Research 20, 813-827.
Zhang, J. 2000. The discovery of aeschnidiid nymphs (Aeschnidiidae, Odonata, Insecta). Chinese Science Bulletin 45, 1031-1038.
Zhang, J. & Zhang, H. 2001. New findings of larval and adult aeschnidiids (Insecta: Odonata) in the Yixian Formation, Liaoning Province, China. Cretaceous Research 22, 443-450.