Neoptera
Neoptera is a classification group that includes most orders of the winged insects, specifically those that can flex their wings over their abdomens. This is in contrast with the more basal orders of winged insects, which are unable to flex their wings in this way.

Mike · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- NeopterygotaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 319 million years on record.
The record covers at least 320 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 0 Mya.
12,000+ occurrences of Neoptera on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
12,000 occurrences read- Carboniferous4%
- Permian16%
- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassic4%
- Late Triassic3%
- Early Jurassic7%
- Middle Jurassic1%
- Late Jurassic7%
- Early Cretaceous10%
- Late Cretaceous6%
- Paleocene1%
- Eocene23%
- Oligocene7%
- Miocene9%
- Plioceneunder 1%
- Pleistoceneunder 1%
- Holoceneunder 1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. The read hit its cap, so every figure above is a floor and the shares are of the occurrences read. More on what this infers.
Found in
at least 362 formations
- Florissant Formation716
- Karabastau Formation547
- Posidonia Shale Formation403
- Madygen Formation346
- Wellington Formation · Sumner Group345
- Green River Formation297
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The named rock units Neoptera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. The read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 338 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 3,084 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
7,098 taxa- Coleoptera26 sites
- Buratina19 sites
- Bivalvia9 sites
- Serpula9 sites
- Archirhyphus asiaticus8 sites
- Blattodea8 sites
- Gastropoda8 sites
- Aves7 sites
- Berenicea7 sites
- Buratina lusitanica7 sites
- Cribrospongia7 sites
- Diptera7 sites
- Insecta7 sites
- Procramptonomyia kovalevi7 sites
- Anura6 sites
- Crania6 sites
- Craticularia6 sites
- Cribrospongia reticulata6 sites
- Cypellia rugosa6 sites
- Kararhynchus occiduus6 sites
- Liostrea6 sites
- Lithophaga6 sites
- Osteichthyes6 sites
- Paramesopsocus adibi6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 444 sites for Neoptera, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
at least 1,762 references- Les insectes fossiles des terrains oligocènes de France520
- Paleozoiskie nasekomye kuznetskogo basseina461
- The Tertiary Insects of North America415
- Die Insektenfauna des Ostniedersachsischen Oberen Lias388
- Die Trichopteren des baltischen Bernsteins352
- Mezozoiskie zhestkokryiye164
- Heer, 1853159
- Die Insekten der "Plattigen Steinmergels" von Brunstatt153
- Hymenoptera Apocrita of Mesozoic148
- Heer, 1847131
- Filogeniya ortopteroidnykh nasekomykh115
- Piton, 1940104
Each of the 12,000 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. That read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 1,750 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Neoptera
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mike
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Neoptera was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Neoptera”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itNeopterygota through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Martynov 1923