1960] 
Carpenter — Fossil N emopteridae 
21 
pattern is much reduced. A satisfactory generic classification of the 
nemopterids will almost certainly not be achieved until the terminal 
abdominal segments of the males have been studied in detail for the 
majority of the species described from all parts of the world. The 
generic assignments of the fossils discussed below must, of course, be 
made mainly on the basis of the venation of the fore wing and the 
general shape of the hind wing, these being the characteristics which 
have been used in the classification of the living species up to the present 
time. 
Genus Marquettia Navas 
Navas, 1913, Mem. Real Acad. Cien. y Artes de Barcelona, 10:7 
Head shaped much as in Lertha, the rostrum present but not elong- 
ate. Front wing broadly oval, with a venational pattern more or less 
characteristic of that found in the tribe Stenonemiini (Orfila, 1954). 
The radial sector is extensively branched, having ten main branches in 
addition to the anterior media. 3 The pterostigma is small and it was 
probably very light in color in the living insect, as in Lertha . The 
hind wing is slender, about the same as in Kirbynict in general form, 
except that it has a more rounded apex, like that of Olivierina and 
Halterina; it has two dilations, the dilated portion being nearly uni- 
formly dark in color. 
Type species: Halter americana Cockerell. 
As pointed out above, this genus is related, so far as we can see 
from the known structure, to several stenonemiine genera, but it 
stands apart from all of these by the extensive development of the 
radial sector. In this respect, I consider the genus Marquettia to be 
the most primitive of the genera of the Nemopteridae known at the 
present time. 
Marquettia americana (Cockerell) 
Plate 1 and text figure 1. 
Halter americana Cockerell, 1907, Science, 26:466 
Halter americana Cockerell, 1908, Pop. Sci. Mo., 72: 125 
Marquettia americana Navas, 1913, Mem. Real Acad. Cien. y Artes de 
Barcelona, 10:484, fig. 4. 
Fore wing, length, 31 mm.; width, 10 mm. Length of hind wing, 
44 mm.; length of body, 16 mm.; length of beak, 2.5 mm. The vena- 
3 I have used here the venational nomenclature proposed by Dr. P. A. Adams 
in his “Studies in the Neuroptera, with Special Reference to Wing Structure 
and Evolution in the Osmyloidea” (unpublished doctoral thesis, Harvard Uni- 
versity, June 1958). 
