176 



MKSOZOIC INSECTS OF QUEENSLAND, 1. 



the total of iiamed Ipswich fossils was brought up to twenty-two, 

 representing the following Orders : — 



Order. 



Genera. \ Species. 



Blattoidea 



Protorthoptera 



Coleoptera 



Odonata 



Meeoptera 



Lepidoptera 



Protohemiptera 



Hemiptera 



Total, 8 



13 



22 



In dealing with the stratigraphy of the Ipswich Beds,* Mr. 

 Dunstan places the fossil insect bed as most probably Upper 

 Triassic. The assemblage of insects so far revealed from these 

 beds comprises a series of forms which, judged by the succession 

 of strata in the Northern Hemisphere, range from Upper Car- 

 boniferous to Jurassic; some of the latter differing very little 

 from forms still living in Australia to-day. It would seem to be 

 useless to discuss, at present, the question of the exact age of 

 the Ipswich fossil insect bed, since the data required fbr correla- 

 tion with beds of known age are not yet available. What is of 

 importance to entomologists, however, is the fact that the 

 Ipswich Insects are undoubtedly, in most respects, more special- 

 ised than the Upper Carboniferous and Permian Insects of the 

 Northern Hemisphere; while, at the same time, they are, on the 

 whole, undoubtedly more archaic than the assemblage of forms 

 known from the Lower Lias. To give a striking example, the 

 dragonfly Mesophlebia antinodalis Tillyard, from Ipswich, is 

 intermediate between the Carboniferous Protodonata, in which 

 no nodus was formed, and the Liassic Odonata, in which the 

 same structure of the wing was completely formed. In other 

 words, the intermediate condition of nodus-formation, seen in 



Op. cit,, No.2o3, pp. 1-18. 



