Protorthoptera

The Protorthoptera are an extinct order of Palaeozoic insects, and represent a wastebasket taxon and paraphyletic assemblage of basal neoptera. They appear during the Middle Carboniferous, making them among the earliest known winged insects in the fossil record. Pronotal lobes may be expanded to form a shield. The group includes the ancestors of all other polyneopterous insects.

Protorthoptera

International Congress of Entomology (1st : 1910 : Brussels) · Public Domain · 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
PolyneopteraPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 75 million years on record.

The record covers at least 320 Mya to 244.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 241.464 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 79 of 109 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 27 of 109 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 109 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 3 of 109 occurrencesMiddle Triassic325–322 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences322–319 Mya — about 2 occurrences319–317 Mya — about 2 occurrences317–314 Mya — about 7 occurrences314–311 Mya — about 5 occurrences311–308 Mya — about 38 occurrences308–305 Mya — about 12 occurrences305–302 Mya — about 3 occurrences302–299 Mya — about 8 occurrences299–297 Mya — about 2 occurrences297–294 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences294–291 Mya — about 1 occurrence291–288 Mya — about 2 occurrences288–285 Mya — about 2 occurrences285–282 Mya — about 2 occurrences282–280 Mya — about 2 occurrences280–277 Mya — about 2 occurrences277–274 Mya — about 3 occurrences274–271 Mya — about 4 occurrences271–268 Mya — about 4 occurrences268–265 Mya — about 2 occurrences265–263 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences263–260 Mya — about 1 occurrence246–243 Mya — about 2 occurrences243–240 Mya — about 1 occurrence320 Mya244.4 Mya325 Mya240 Mya

109 occurrences of Protorthoptera on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

109 occurrences

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. More on what this infers.

Found in

22 formations

Carbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WCarbondale — 41.30°N, 88.15°WCarbondale — 41.22°N, 88.21°WCommentry Shales — 46.29°N, 2.75°EIva-Gora Beds — 65.55°N, 43.67°EFlénu — 50.40°N, 3.90°EKoshelevka — 57.03°N, 57.72°EWellington — 38.64°N, 97.21°WAshfield Shale — 34.09°S, 150.76°EAshfield Shale — 33.91°S, 151.19°EBaitugan — 55.89°N, 53.34°EAllegheny — 41.10°N, 81.44°WAllegheny — 39.68°N, 79.79°WAllegheny — 39.54°N, 79.09°WLlewellyn — 41.36°N, 75.79°WLlewellyn — 40.91°N, 75.99°WAmanak — 51.88°N, 54.84°EOttweiler Stufe — 50.68°N, 10.86°EOttweiler Stufe — 51.58°N, 11.80°ESolikamsk — 60.30°N, 56.49°EWhitehill — 33.04°S, 24.05°ELower Saarbrucker — 49.28°N, 7.12°ELower Saarbrucker layer — 49.46°N, 7.91°EBajo de Veliz — 32.25°S, 65.52°WIshanovskaya — 55.17°N, 86.60°EDwyka — 18.12°S, 27.80°EBloyd Shale — 36.00°N, 94.22°WIbbenbüren — 52.34°N, 7.66°ELetovice — 49.46°N, 16.60°E

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The named rock units Protorthoptera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Protorthoptera and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Protorthoptera and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

1,286 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 66 sites for Protorthoptera, and this reads all of them. 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

59 references

Each of the 109 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. 46 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 Protorthoptera

Credit
International Congress of Entomology (1st : 1910 : Brussels)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Protorthoptera was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

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 itPolyneoptera through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Handlirsch 1906