1938] 
Fossil Insects 
105 
FOSSIL INSECTS FROM THE CREEDE FORMATION, 
COLORADO 
Part 1. Introduction, Neuroptera, Isoptera and 
Diptera 
By F. M. Carpenter, T. E. Snyder, C. P. Alexander, M. T. James 
and F. M. Hull 
Introduction 
By F. M. Carpenter 
Harvard University 
During the past twenty-five years, intensive geologic work 
in the Rocky Mountain region has revealed several Tertiary 
lake-bed deposits, the presence of which had not previously 
been suspected. One of these beds, termed the Creede for- 
mation by Emmons and Larson (1923), is extensively ex- 
posed on the slopes of Willow Creek, near the town of Creede, 
Colorado. The formation is highly fossiliferous with plants, 
and a preliminary account of its flora has been published by 
Knowlton (1923). In 1932, Mr. Allan Caplan, then a senior 
in the Creede High School, found that insects also were not 
uncommon in the formation, and an examination of some of 
his specimens convinced me that a collecting trip to this 
formation would be a practicable and profitable undertaking. 
With the aid of a grant from the Milton Fund of Harvard 
University, the collecting trip was made during the summer 
of 1934. In addition to the writer and his wife, the party 
consisted of Mr. C. T. Parsons, a student in Harvard College, 
and Mr. Caplan, who joined us at Creede. In the course of 
the summer about two thousand insects were secured ; most 
of these were actually found by Mr. Caplan, while the rest of 
the party collected in the Green River shales of Utah. 
The present series of papers is based mainly upon the spec- 
imens obtained on this trip, but it also covers a collection of 
