Abstract
OF the myriads of species of insects which swarm upon this earth, none is of such absorbing interest to mankind in general as the two-winged flies grouped together in the great order Diptera. This order is, by common consent, admitted to be one of the most highly specialised within the class, if not actually the most highly specialised of all. Yet, while no undoubted fossils of the order Lepidoptera, for example, are known older than the early Tertiary, definite, though somewhat obscure, dipterous types are known from the European Lias. We know, however, that the Lepidoptera must have existed for millions of years as obscure and very small types similar to Micropteryx and its allies, and that these in their turn had a common origin with the Caddis-flies or order Trichoptera. Ancient representatives of this latter order also occur so far back as the Lias, and I have previously given reasons why the common stem of the two orders Lepidoptera and Trichoptera must be regarded as having arisen from an extinct side-branch of the older order of Scorpion-flies or Mecoptera, which goes back, geologically, almost unchanged to the Lower Permian and probably also to the Upper Carboniferous.
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TILLYARD, K. Permian Diptera from Warner's Bay, N.S.W. Nature 123, 778–779 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/123778a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/123778a0
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