LOWER PERMIAN INSECTS FROM OKLAHOMA 
PART 2. ORDERS EPHEMEROPTERA 
AND PALAEODICTYOPTERA* 
By Frank M. Carpenter 
Museum of Comparative Zoology 
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 
Nature is always on the watch for our follies and trips us up when we 
strut. —R. W. Emerson 
The discovery and exploration of the insect-bearing deposit in the 
Midco member of the Wellington Formation were made by Dr. 
Gilbert Raasch and me about forty years ago, just before the begin¬ 
ning of the Second World War. Preparation and publication of my 
first paper on the insects were necessarily deferred until after the war 
(Carpenter, 1947). By that time I had become convinced of the 
necessity of my studying in detail as many as possible of the 
Palaeozoic insects already described from European and North 
American deposits before continuing with the new material. Having 
spent several months before the war with the Commentry specimens 
in the Laboratoire de Palaeontologie in Paris and at least as much 
time on type specimens in museums in the United States, I had come 
to realize that many of the published figures and descriptions were 
unreliable and that most of the fossils had never been properly 
prepared for study, the body structures usually remaining hidden 
v/ithin the rock matrix. In part because of administrative duties at 
Harvard University after the war and in part because of the political 
conditions in Europe during the 1950’s, I found it impossible to 
resume the study of such collections, especially in Paris and Mos¬ 
cow, until 1961. Since then I have been able to study the greater part 
of the more important collections and to publish on some of them, 
as time and occasion have permitted. 
It now seems feasible for me to continue with the series of articles 
on the insects in the Midco beds. The collection at the Museum of 
♦Partial financial support of this research is gratefully acknowledged to the National 
Science Foundation, Grant no. DEB-09947, F. M. Carpenter, Principal Investigator. 
I am also indebted to the authorities of the Peabody Museum, Yale University, for 
the loan of type specimens. 
Manuscript received by the editor October 15, 1979 
261 
