268 
Psyche 
[June-September 
Family Protereismatidae 
NYMPHS 
In 1968 Dr. Jarmila Kukalova, while making an extended visit to 
my laboratory at Harvard University, brought from Czechslovakia 
several fossil mayfly nymphs that she had collected in Permian beds 
in Moravia. Since only a very few, poorly preserved Palaeozoic 
mayfly nymphs were known at that time, 1 suggested that she might 
also study, along with her specimens from Moravia, some well- 
preserved specimens that I had collected in the Midco beds in 1940. 
However, since 1 had not yet published on or even studied carefully 
the mayfly adults in that deposit, I requested that the specimens be 
mentioned by numbers, instead of by new generic or specific names. 
The reason for that request, of course, was that the systematic posi¬ 
tion of the nymphs should be investigated in conjunction with sim¬ 
ilar studies of the adults in the same deposit. Accordingly, in Dr. 
Kukalova’s published account (1969) of these nymphs, the fossils 
were identified as nymphs no. 1, no. 2, etc., of Proterisma sp., the 
generic assignment being probable but not certain 
However, my efforts to defer the naming of the Midco nymphs 
until the adult mayflies had been studied were defeated by Demou- 
lin with his publication in 1969 of a paper entitled, “Remarques 
critiques sur des larves ‘Ephemeromorpha’ du Permien.” In this 
publication Demoulin, without of course seeing any of the speci¬ 
mens, formally erected the new genus Kukalova and the new family 
Kukalovidae to receive the Midco species, which he named ameri- 
cana (type-species), and one of the Moravian species, moravica. The 
diagnoses were based on his interpretation of Kukalova’s account. 
He also erected the new genus Jarmila for another of the Moravian 
nymphs, termed elongata, placing it in the new family Jarmilidae. 
The two new families were assigned to the extinct order Archodo- 
nata, and he established a new superorder, Ephemeromorpha, to 
include the Ephemeroptera and the Archodonata. Had Demoulin 
communicated his intentions to Dr. Kukalova or to me, we could 
have corrected his misconceptions of both the nymphs and the 
Archodonata and thus have prevented the publication of what cer¬ 
tainly must be one of the most futile articles in all the literature on 
fossil insects. That the nymphs from the Midco beds are in fact 
members of the genus Protereisma will become obvious from the 
following account. Since the Moravian specimens are not available 
to me, I am unable to comment on them except by inference. 
