PSYCHE 
Vol. 83 September-December, 1976 No. 3-4 
STRUCTURE AND RELATIONSHIPS OF THE UPPER 
CARBONIFEROUS INSECT, EUCAENUS OVALIS 
(PROTORTHOPTERA: EUCAENIDAE) 
By Frank M. Carpenter 1 and Eugene S. Richardson, Jr. 2 
In 1885 S. H. Scudder described as Eucaenus ovalis a Penn- 
sylvanian (Upper Carboniferous) insect preserved in a concre- 
tion from the Francis Creek Shale in northeastern Illinois. Sub- 
sequently, a few additional specimens of the same insect were 
described by Melander (1903) and Handlirsch (1906a, 1911) 
from the same beds. Unfortunately, none of these specimens 
were sufficiently well preserved to give a satisfactory concept 
of the insect. In recent years, however, and for the most part 
through the activities of local amateur collectors, a surpiising- 
ly large number of specimens of ovalis , many of them well pre- 
served, have been found in spoil heaps of strip mines dug to coal 
just beneath the shale (see Richardson and Johnson, 1971). As 
a result, Eucaenus ovalis is now one of the two or three best known 
Upper Carboniferous insects from anywhere in the world. The 
present account is based on a study of all the specimens of the 
species at present available. 3 
For the opportunity of examining new material, previously 
unstudied, we are grateful to the following individuals, who have 
collected the specimens and loaned them to us: Mr. Frank A. 
Greene, Coal City, Illinois; the late Mr. Levi Sherman, former- 
ly of Des Plaines, Illinois; Mr. and Mrs. Francis Wolff, Port 
Charlotte, Florida; Mr. Lanny Morreau, Normal, Illinois; and 
'Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 
2 Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois 60605 
3 Partial financial support of this research is gratefully acknowledged to the Na- 
tional Science Foundation: Grants numbered GB 39790 and DEB 76-04861, F. M. 
Carpenter, Harvard University, Principal Investigator; and GB 5772, Ralph G. 
Johnson and Eugene S. Richardson, Jr., Field Museum of Natural History, Prin- 
cipal Investigators. 
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