1967] 
Carpenter — Carboniferous insects 
77 
(2) Serrations of the wing margin. These are essentially the 
same as in Brodia but in the pterostigmal region of the wing, the 
costa is somewhat broadened and the serrations or macrotrichia are 
larger and more numerous. The subcosta can be seen to continue 
along the costa towards the apex of the wing and it also bears the short 
setal processes in the pterostigmal area. (See photograph, bottom fig. 
plate 14). The radius bears occasional setal bases as in Brodia it- 
self. There do not appear to be any heavy setae along the posterior 
margin, even on the margin near iA. In this connection it is in- 
teresting to note the similarity between the costal margin of Brodia 
and Eubrodia and that of Anchineura, a megasecopteron from the 
Upper Carboniferous of Spain (Carpenter, 1963). 
(3) The cross veins and archedictyon. These constitute the 
most distinctive features of Eubrodia ; the presence of an archedictyon 
in the Brodiidae is totally unexpected. The archedictyon in Eubro- 
dia is a very regular one, present over most of the wing; the indi- 
vidual cells are almost hexagonal in form. In the costal area there 
are distinctly differentiated transverse veinlets and in the two regions 
of the wing just basal to the mid-wing and just distal to the mid- 
wing, the cross veins form a very different pattern. (See Plate 13). 
One gets the impression from the structure of the cross veins in 
Eubrodia that the archedictyon is in the process of developing into 
a more regular and more open reticulation. It now seems probable, 
from the structure of the wing membrane in Eubrodia, that the fine 
transverse lines in Brodia J shown in the photograph (figure 2, plate 
1 1 ) , are vestiges of an archedictyon which was presumably present in 
the more primitive or ancestral Brodiidae. 
Since an archedictyon has not previously been observed in the 
Megasecoptera, we need to consider the question of whether the 
Brodiidae are Megasecoptera or Palaeodictyoptera. As noted pre- 
viously, Handlirsch originally placed Brodia in the Palaeodictyoptera 
and Bolton (1921) persisted in this view. All other students of 
Palaeozoic insects have placed them in the Megasecoptera or in the 
Diaphanopterodea. The basic difficulty is that the more we know 
about the Megasecoptera the more they resemble the Palaeodictyop- 
tera, at least in wing structure (Carpenter, 1963). It may well 
turn out that we are really dealing with a single order. However, 
Explanation of Plate 13 
Eubrodia dabasinskasi, n. sp. Photograph of middle part of wing (holo- 
type), archedictyon (right side) and longer, irregular cross veins (left side) 
(times 9). 
