1964] 
Carpenter — Dictyoptihis 
15 
in the fossil, Handlirsch has presented a detailed restoration of the 
entire insect (1921), which shows the complete wing as curiously 
shaped, short and broad. Haupt (1949), basing his conclusions on the 
same unique specimen, has given another restoration, which shows 
equally strange but short wings 5 . Actually, of course, there is no evi- 
dence whatever for the peculiar shapes of the wings depicted by 
Handlirsch and Haupt. Indeed, from the similarity of Dictyoptilus 
to Eugereon, it now becomes virtually certain that the fore wing of 
Eugereon was long and slender as in Dictyoptilus and that the hind 
wing was similarly shaped. 
Although the Eugereonidae, as conceived here, includes species in 
which the venational patterns of the fore and hind wings are markedly 
different, I see no reason for separating the group into a distinct 
order, as has been done by Laurentiaux. Very little is actually known 
about most genera of Palaeodictyoptera and as indicated by the history 
of Dictyoptilus and Eugereon , discussed above, when more informa- 
tion is obtained, it is usually quite different from what was expected. 
Attempts to divide the Palaeodictyoptera into suborders and super- 
families, as has been done by Rohdendorf (1961) or into orders, as 
has been done by Laurentiaux (1953) seems to me to be useless 
nomenclature in the present state of our knowledge of Palaeozoic 
insects. The evidence at hand suggest that the order Palaeodictyop- 
tera was a very large and diverse group — far more diverse than we 
have realized — but still monophyletic. It seems highly probable on 
the basis of the history of other groups of animals that these early 
winged insects underwent a rapid, radial evolution, but until more 
structural details are known (e.g., both fore and hind wings, body 
structure, etc.), I believe we cannot untangle the numerous lines of 
evolution. 
References 
Brongniart, C. 
1893. Recherches pour servir a l’histoire des insectes fossiles des temps 
primaires. Soc. Industr. Minerale, Bull., 7:124-615, pis. 17-53; 
also published as These Fac. Sci. Paris, 821, pp. 1-494, pis. 1-37. 
(All page and plate citations in the present paper refer to the 
These, since this is the only form of Brongniart’s work usually 
available.) 
Dohrn, A. 
1866 Eugereon boeckingi. Palaeontographica, 13:333-340, pi. 41. 
1867. Zur Kenntnis der Insekten in der Primarformation von Saar- 
bru'cken. Palaeont. 14:129-134, pi. 8. 
5 Both of these restorations are included in Haupt’s paper (1949, page 33). 
The best published photograph of the actual specimen of Eugereon is in- 
cluded in Handlirsch, 1906, plate 38. 
