| Palæos: |  |
Insecta |
| INVERTEBRATES | Protodonata |
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| Palæos: | |
Insecta |
| INVERTEBRATES | Protodonata |
| Page Back | Unit Home | Page Next | Page Up | Unit Up | Cladogram |
The Protodonata were a group of large to gigantic predatory flying insects, with wingspans of 12 to 75 cm. Like dragonflies, to which they were related, they had long narrow bodies, huge eyes, and strong jaws and spiny legs for grasping prey. The wing veination is extremely primitive, with all the main veins except one (the Rs vein) having separate origins at the base of the wing, and the cubito-anal area represented by a single vein. The characteristic structure of the true Odonata (dragonfly) wing are not developed. There was also a dense reticulation of cross-veins.
The Protodonata were transitional between the Palaeodictyoptera and the Odontata. Almost certainly the larvae were aquatic and carnivorous (like modern dragonfly larvae), and fed on small aquatic vertebrates (fish, and amphibia) or larger invertebrates. It is likely that the adults frequented open spaces where they had room to maneuver, and may well have spread to upland environments. Only a few families and genera are known; this appears to have been a small group, or alternatively to have frequented areas where they would not have easily fossilized.
Meganuera monyi Brongniart
wingspan 75 cm
Stephanian Epoch (Upper Productive Coal Measures) -
Gzhelian
epoch
Commentry (Allier), France
family Meganeuridae - Bashkirian to Kazanian (early
Late Permian)
graphic from Karl Von Zittel's Text-Book of Paleontology
ed. Charles R. Eastman, 2nd ed. vol.1 1937 MacMillan
& Co. London, p.809, fig.1567
Fossil remains of Protodonata are known from the late Carboniferous of France, the early Permian of North America, the late Permian of Russia and Australia, and there is a single species recorded from the Triassic of France. The group may have persisted into the early Jurassic. It can be assumed that they evolved some time during the mid Carboniferous, flourished until the end of the Paleozoic, when a few survivors straggled on into the early Mesozoic.
Order Protodonatafood: adult: other flying insects food larvae (nymph) - small vertebrates, small fish, larval amphibians ("tadpoles") etc Habitat: pond margins, lakes and watercourses Stratigraphic range: Carboniferous (Bashkirian) to Jurassic (Hettangian/Sinemurian) Geographic range: Pangea Ancestors: Palaeodictyoptera Descendents: Odonata |
Cladistic diagram - from Günter Bechly, 
Phylogenetic
Systematics of the Odonates
| Protodonata
Namurotypidae Meganeuromorpha Paralogidae (sedis mutabilis) Kargalotypidae (sedis mutabilis) Kohlwaldiidae (sedis mutabilis) Meganeuridae (sedis mutabilis) Carpentertypinae (sedis mutabilis) "Tupinae" (sedis mutabilis) Meganeurinae (sedis mutabilis) |
E. F. Reik, 1970, "Fossil History", in Insects of Australia, Melbourne
University Press, p.172
Protodonata
(cladistic definition) on Phylogenetic
Systematics of basal Pterygota and Stem-Group Odonates - Günter
Bechly,
Insects |
