200 
Psyche 
[June 
along the posterior margin; posterior margin with a pronounced 
convex curve beyond CuP; anal area relatively narrow but high. 
This species shows the most spectacular color pattern within the 
Palaeodictyoptera. The broad wings and the color pattern cause 
this insect to resemble superficially some of the Lepidoptera.* 
Spilapteridae Gen. Inc. stir ru pi (Brongniart) 
Figure 21 
Lamproptilia stirrupi Brongniart, 1893: 347, pi. 19, fig. 9; Handlirsch, 1906: 
110, pi. 12, fig. 9; Handlirsch, 1919: 21; Laurentiaux, 1953: 422. 
This species was based on a small fragment of a fore wing (speci- 
men 19-9). The venation shows few features for generic assignment. 
1 he wing fragment is 72 mm long and 23 mm wide. 
Family Fouqueidae Handlirsch 
Fouqueidae, Handlirsch, 1906: 98; Lameere, 1917: 103; Lameere, 1917: 30. 
Type genus: Fouquea Brongniart, 1893. 
Handlirsch established this family for forms with richly branched 
venation and with a “reticulation recalling the Dictyoneuridae.” He 
also associated the family with the Graphiptilidae, Spilapteridae and 
Lamproptiliidae. Lameere (1917: 103) called attention to the re- 
lationship between Fouqueidae and Spilapteridae, and later (1917: 
30) he noted the possibility of the spilapterids being ancestral to the 
Dictyoneuridae (i.e., Stenodictyopteres of Brongniart). Lameere 
(1917: 154) considered the type genus Fouquea to be especially 
close to the genus Rhabdoptilus. 
The family Fouqueidae is known only by fore and hind wings, in 
none of which are the basal portions satisfactorily preserved. The 
venational pattern is inseparable from that of the Spilapteridae (in- 
cluding the Lamproptiliidae), but is very different from that of the 
Graphiptilidae (including the genus Rhabdoptilus ) . The fouqueids 
can be differentiated from the spilapterids only by the presence of 
a dense pattern of prominent cross veins, which are mostly curved 
and often anastomosed and which extend over almost the entire 
area of the wings. This pattern of cross veins is very different from 
the true archedictyon of the Dictyoneuridae. 
The wings are about equal in length, the hind pair broader in 
the basal parts. Venational pattern like that of the spilapterids, but 
*Forbes (1943) actually considered Lamproptilia to be holometabolous, re- 
lated to the Neuroptera, Mecoptera, Lepidoptera, etc. 
