Palæos:		Insecta
INVERTEBRATES		Odonata

Odonata

dragonflies and their kin

"There is general agreement that the Odonata and Meganisoptera (Protodonata) were derived from the same stock. Excluding the Upper Carboniferous Campylopteridae, the position of which is disputable, the earliest records of Odonata are from the Permian of North America and Russia, where the main lines of zygopterous and anisopterous descent were already differentiated. Six suborders are recognized, of which three have survived. The Protozygoptera, best known from Kennedya and its allies, may have been ancestral to the Zygoptera, and the Protanisoptera, through the Anisozygoptera which replaced them in the Mesozoic, to the Anisoptera; the Mesozoic Archizygoptera appear to have been a divergent line that has left no descendants."

E. F. Reik, 1970, "Fossil History", in Insects of Australia, Melbourne University Press

Tarsophlebia eximia
a late Jurassic (early Tithonian) dragonfly from Europe
Lithographic Shale, Bavaria
wingspan 3.5 to 4 cm

References

Karl Von Zittel's Text-Book of Paleontology ed. Charles R. Eastman, 2nd ed. vol.1 1937 MacMillan & Co. London

E. F. Reik, 1970, "Fossil History", in Insects of Australia, Melbourne University Press

Insects

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