'FMASSie INSECTS OF QUEENSLAND. 41 
On general grounds it has long been considered that the members of 
the suborder Homoneura are the oldest living types of Lepidoptera and 
that some living species retain primitive features which place them close 
to the prototype of that order of insects. Indeed, from a study of all 
the living forms a hypothetical archetype of the order has been 
conceived as appearing very much like some primitive living members of 
the Hepialidae, one of the largest families of the Homoneura. How- 
ever, up till now no true member of the Lepidoptera has been discovered 
in any geological horizon lower than the Tertiary. 
The hitherto oldest known fossils which are without doubt 
Homoneurous Lepidoptera, belong to the family Micropterygidae, 
the oldest actual species being Micropteryx proaviteUa Rebel which 
was obtained from Baltic amber of Oligocene Age. Another similar species 
Micropteryx pervetus Cockerell has been found; in Miocene amber from 
Burma. M. proavitella differs only in minor generic details from living 
members of its family and furnishes no novel clues as to the origins of 
the Lepidoptera. Further it was found in association with more special- 
ised forms closely related to living genera and species of advanced 
families of Lepidoptera. It is evident that the origins of the Lepidoptera 
must be sought in earlier geological ages. 
Some poorly preserved insect impressions from the Jurassic were 
formerly thought, by Handlirsch, to have belonged to the Lepidoptera 
but were afterwards proved to be unquestionably the remains of Homo- 
ptera allied to some primitive living forms of cicada, so that although 
a possible Jurassic origin for the Lepidoptera was formerly postulated 
it had no basis in known facts. There was only indirect deduction upon 
which to base any assumption that the Lepidoptera was Mesozoic in 
origin, although on general grounds it was thought that their evolution 
must have taken place concurrently with the rise of flowering plants 
in Mesozoic times. However, as we know from the previous work of 
many students, including Handlirsch, Tillyard, Carpenter and other 
workers, that all the other principal stems of the Mecopteroid complex 
of orders were already well defined by early Mesozoic times, the appear- 
ance of a primitive member of the Lepidoptera in late Triassic beds 
would neither be a matter of great surprise nor greatly inconsistent with 
modern trends of knowledge and theory. In fact the entire absence of 
the Lepidoptera from the Mesozoic period would be surprising on any 
grounds, other than that of the difficulty of finding the rare beds in 
which such delicate insects could be preserved. 
The question naturally arises whether, in view of the trend of this 
introduction, Eoses is possibly to be regarded as a primitive Lepidop- 
teron? Accepting for the moment that the fore and hind wings do 
belong together, it is abundantly clear that if these wings were those of 
Lepidoptera the species would fall much closer to the suborder 
Homoneura than to the Heteroneura, the other large division of the order 
Lepidoptera. The most striking distinction between these two great 
suborders is the possession by the Homoneura of five radial veins in 
