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| Snakeflies Fossil range: Early Cretaceous - Recent |
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 Female Raphidia notata
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Inocelliidae |
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Raphidiodea |
Snakeflies are a group of insects in the order Raphidioptera, consisting of about 150 species. Together with the Megaloptera they were formerly placed within the Neuroptera, but now these two are generally regarded as separate orders.
Raphidioptera are characterized by having an elongate prothorax but no modification of the forelegs (as in Mantispidae). They possess ocelli and females typically have a long ovipositor. Snakeflies are predatory, both as adults and larvae. They can be quite common throughout temperate Europe and Asia, but in North America occur exclusively in the Western United States, namely in the Rocky Mountains as their larvae require cool temperatures to develop.
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Systematics
The Megaloptera, Neuroptera (in the modern sense) and Raphidioptera are very closely related, and the new name for this group is Neuropterida1. This is either placed at superorder rank, with the Endopterygota - of which they are part - becoming an unranked clade above it, or the Endopterygota are maintained as a superorder, with an unranked Neuropterida being a part of them. Within the endopterygotes, the closest living relatives of the neuropteridan clade are the beetles.
The two extant families of snakeflies are the Raphidiidae and Inocelliidae. In addition, there are a number of extinct forms known only from fossils. Almost all known snakeflies belong to the suborder Raphidiomorpha. The single exception is the prehistoric family Priscaenigmatidae, sometimes placed in a suborder Priscaenigmatomorpha but more likely a basal lineage that does not warrant the establishment of such a redundant monotypic taxon.2
Fossil snakeflies are known from the Early Cretaceous onwards and these are not even the basalmost forms, suggesting their origin lies deep in the Jurassic at least. In fact, the earliest Neuroptera are from the Permian and thus snakefly ancestors probably even predate the Mesozoic also. Fossil Raphidiomorpha taxa are:2
- Genus Nanoraphidia (incertae sedis)
- Family Alloraphidiidae
- Family Baissopteridae
- Family Mesoraphidiidae
Notable species
- Agulla adnixa
- Dichrostigma flavipes
- Mongoloraphidia manasiana
- Phaeostigma major
- Phaeostigma notata
- Raphidia notata
- Subilla confinis
- Xanthostigma xanthostigma
Footnotes
- ^ Also called "Neuropteroidea", though the ending "-oidea" is normally used for superfamilies. See references in Haaramo (2008).
- ^ a b See references in Haaramo (2008)
References
- Aspöck, H. (2002): The biology of Raphidioptera: A review of present knowledge. Acta Zoologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 48(Supplement 2): 35–50. PDF fulltext
- Carpenter, F.M. (1936): Revision of the Nearctic Raphidiodea (Recent and Fossil). Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 71(2): 89–157.
- Grimaldi, David & Engel, Michael S. (2005): Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82149-5
- Haaramo, Mikko (2008): Mikko's Phylogeny Archive: Neuropterida. Version of 2008-MAR-11. Retrieved 2008-MAY-05.
- Maddison, David R. (1995): Tree of Life Web Project - Raphidioptera. Snakeflies.
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 11 October 2008, at 13:36.
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