Sellards — Fossil Insects in the Permian of Kansas, 323 



Art. XXXI. — Discovery of Fossil Insects in the Permian 

 of Kansas ; by E. H. Sellards. 



The question of the age of the Upper Paleozoic formations 

 of Kansas has occasioned considerable difference of opinion 

 among geologists and paleontologists. Professor C. S. Prosser, 

 who, among others, has been a thorough student of the problem, 

 in a recent very full review of the evidence from zoopaleontol- 

 ogy and stratigraphy, concludes, in harmony with his earlier 

 results, that " the weight of evidence " favors '' correlating 

 the upper formations with the Permian." "^ In his synopsis 

 of the views of geologists who have written on the subject, 

 however. Professor Prosser makes it evident that this opinion, 

 although perhaps receiving the greatest support, is not unani- 

 mous. Any additional paleontological evidence is therefore 

 especially welcome. Until recently the discussion has been 

 confined largelj^ to the marine invertebrates, which unfor- 

 tunately become extremely rare near the top of the series. 



During the summer of 1902 the writer discovered a rich 

 insect locality in the Marion formation, in the southern part 

 of Dickinson county, Kansas. The condition of preservation of 

 the insects is exceptionally good. A very large proportion of 

 the wings are complete and their details of structure clear, 

 even the minute hairs often being present. The entire bodies 

 of the insects are occasionally preserved. A considerable num- 

 ber of insects had been previously obtained from the Coal 

 Measures near Lawrence, Kansas, mostly by the University 

 Geological Survey of Kansas. The insects from the Marion 

 seem on the whole very different from those of the Lawrence 

 shales and other Coal Measure deposits. The Coal Measure 

 insects, as far as known, are on the average large ; on the con- 

 trary, most of the Marion species are small. Cockroaches at 

 this -new locality are much in the minority. Of some six 

 hundred specimens collected, not more than about sixteen are 

 cockroaches and these are of small size and belong for the most 

 part to the Coal Measure and Permian genus Ftohlattina. 

 Fossil plants were discovered in the Marion in 1899.t The col- 

 lections made from the Marion and Wellington (?) during 

 1899-1900 seemed to the writer at that time to indicate a 

 Lower Permian flora.:}: These collections have since been 

 increased, and it may now be said with a good deal of confi- 

 dence that, although a few species have survived from the 

 Upper Coal Measures, the Marion contains on the whole a dis- 



* Journal of Geology, vol. x, p. 728, 1902. 



f The occurrence of two specimens of insects among the plants was noted 

 by the writer in connection with the description of the Taeniopterid ferns 

 from this formation (Kansas Univ. Quart., vol. x, p. 11, 1901). 



X Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., vol. xvii, p. 208, 1899-1900. 



