Austropanorpa Explained

Austropanorpa is an extinct genus of scorpionfly. It is the only member of the family Austropanorpidae. The type species, A. australis was described by Edgar Riek in 1952 based on two incomplete forewings from the Redbank Plains Formation of Queensland, of probable Eocene age, and was assigned to Panorpidae.^[1] Later, it was recognised as distinctive enough to be assigned to its own monotypic family by Rainer Willman in 1977.^[2] In 2018 the species "Orthophlebia" martynovae from the Early Jurassic (Toarcian) aged Cheremkhovo Formation near Lake Baikal in Siberia, described by Irina Sukacheva in 1985,^[3] was recognised as belonging to the genus. The genus is distinguished from other mecopterans by having nine branched radial sectors and four veins in the medial sector of both wings, as opposed to living panorpoids which are typically 5 and rarely 6 branched.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Riek, E. F. 1952. The fossil insects of the Tertiary Redbank Plainsseries. Part I. An outline of the fossil assemblage with descriptionsof the fossil insects of Mecoptera and Neuroptera.University of Queensland, Department of Geology, Papers, (N.S.) 4,3–14
2. Willmann, R. 1977. Zur systematischen Stellung von Austropanorpa(Insecta, Mecoptera) aus dem Altterti?r Australiens.Pala ̈ontolo-gische Zeitschrift 51, 12–18.
3. Sukatsheva, I. D. 1985. Jurassic scorpionflies of South Siberia and West Mongolia.In Rasnitsyn, A. P. (ed.) [Jurassic insects ofSiberia and Mongolia.] Trudy Paleontologicheskogo Instituta ANSSSR211, 96–114. Moscow: Nauka. [In Russian.]
4. Krzemiński. Wiesław. Soszyńska-Maj. Agnieszka. Kopeć. Katarzyna. Sukatsheva. Irena D.. June 2016. The oldest representative of the family Austropanorpidae (Mecoptera) from the Lower Jurassic of Siberia. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. en. 107. 2–3. 151–155. 10.1017/S1755691017000214. 1755-6910. subscription.