1970] 
MacLeod — Baltic Amber Neuroptera 
157 
and Sodirus , which Navas (1913) erected for two unassociated 
larval forms, must also be noted here. Although long experience 
with Navas’ taxonomic methods teaches one to anticipate novel 
procedures, I am hard put to understand this particular action 
since I believe that there is every reason to anticipate the discovery 
that these larvae produce adults which belong to long-established 
genera. 
By comparison with these larvae and with a number of additional, 
unassociated forms available to me for study or described by pre- 
vious workers, N eadelphus appears to differ by the following 
combination of characters : 1 ) the quadrate, parallel-sided head 
capsule; 2) the relatively narrow, produced jaws which are curved 
only near their tips and which bear the three mandibular teeth distal 
to the midpoint of the jaw; 3) the elongate, unflattened shape of 
the twelve pairs of lateral scoli which are unaccompanied by the 
development of small, additional anterior or ventral scoli or tubercles 
on the abdominal segments; 4) the ventral position of the first two 
pairs of abdominal spiracles (and presumably of the remaining six 
posterior pairs). Various larvae of living species show one or a 
few of these features, but none show this unique combination. With 
particular respect to the larval-based genera Neulatus and SodiruSj 
IS! eadelphus differs in the form of its prominent, parallel-sided ocular 
tubercles. These are small and distally narrowed in Neulatus and 
rather short and hemispherical in Sodirus. In addition, this latter 
genus has flattened scoli and a .small tubercle on several of the 
abdominal segments, immediately anterior to the scolus, which are 
features lacking in N eadelphus. 
The ventral location of all eight pairs of abdominal spiracles, 
which N eadelphus shares with several living genera including 
LJlulodes is presumably a generalized feature derived from the 
lateral position of these openings in unflattened ancestral nymphids. 
Such additional features of Neadelphus as the cylindrical shape of 
the scoli and the non-falcate development of the jaws, though also 
shared with some living forms, are probably additional examples 
of generalized character states. In contrast, the presence of only 
a dorsal series of abdominal scoli must be considered as a specializa- 
tion from the nymphid double series (see below). Thus, in this 
respect, the Oligocene N eadelphus appears already specialized by 
comparison to several living larval forms which retain a trace of 
the ventral series of scoli either as short projections beneath the 
main dorsal series on abdominal segments I and II (as in an un- 
