STUDIES ON CARBONIFEROUS INSECTS OF 
COMMENTRY, FRANCE: PART III. 
THE CALONEURODEA 
By F. M. Carpenter 
H arvard University 
Introduction 
This is the third in a series of papers redescribing certain of the 
Carboniferous insects of the Commentry Basin, France. 1 It treats 
those Commentry species which now appear to belong to the order 
Caloneurodea. This extinct order was erected by Martynov in 1938 
for the Carboniferous family Caloneuridae and for related families 
represented in Permian deposits of the USSR. It now includes addi- 
tional families established by Carpenter (1943) for Permian species 
from Kansas. At the present time seven families are known in the 
order and of these only one, the Caloneuridae, is of Carboniferous age. 
The Commentry specimens are by far the most important of the 
Caloneuridae but Handlirsch’s and Meunier’s publications have given 
us a superficial and confused knowledge of these fossils. The present 
paper, which is based upon direct study of all the known Commentry 
material, consists of redescriptions of the fossils and a revision of their 
taxonomic assignments. 
Survey of Commentry Species 
A historical account of the Commentry collections and of the gen- 
eral literature on the insects was included in the first part of this 
series of papers (Carpenter, 1943). Among the species first described 
by Brongniart (1885) from the Commentry shales was a single speci- 
men, designated Caloneura dawsoni, and assigned to the family Pal- 
aeacridiodea of the order Orthoptera. In his later monograph of the 
Commentry insects (1894) Brongniart included drawings of five 
additional specimens of dawsoni and gave a more extensive account of 
the genus, which he placed in the same family, designated at that time 
as Palaeacrididae. Handlirsch, in his 1906 treatise, established the 
family Caloneuridae for the genus, assigning it to the extinct order 
Protorthoptera. 
This research has been aided by a grant (NSF-G14099) from the National 
Science Foundation and by a previous grant (1938) from the Penrose Fund of 
the American Philosophical Society. I am indebted to the authorities of the 
Laboratoire de Paleontologie of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in 
Paris for placing at my disposal the unique collections of Commentry insects 
in the Museum, both in 1938 and in 1961; and to the authorities of the British 
Museum (Natural History) for allowing me to examine the Commentry 
fossils in that institution. 
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