Mesoptilus dolloi
Creators: name: Guan, Zhaoying
name: Prokop, Jakub
name: Roques, Patrick
name: Lapeyrie, Jean
name: Nel, André
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2015
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Cnemidolestodea
Ischnoneuridae
Mesoptilus
Mesoptilus dolloi

description: Mesoptilus dolloi (Lameere, 1917)
Fig. 3.
Holotype: MNHN R51159, imprint of prothorax, forewings and fragmentary legs.
Type locality: Commentry Basin, Allier department, France.
Type horizon: Stephanian, Carboniferous (= Gzhelian, Upper Pennsylvanian).
Material.— Type material only.
Emended diagnosis.—Forewing anterior branches of CuA strongly approximate at their bases, with first one distant from m-cua.
Description.—Some details of forewing venation have been neglected by Béthoux and Wieland (2009), so we prefer to provide a redescription of this taxon. An imprint of prothorax with nearly complete right wing and base of left wing, and some legs attached.
Thorax poorly preserved, 6.0 mm wide; fore femur 23 mm long, 1.7 mm wide; tibia more than 8.0 mm long, 0.9 mm wide, with a series of strong curved spines along inner margin, 0.3 mm long. Hind leg with strong femora and with tibia 1.6 mm wide, armed with an outer series of strong spines; a hind wing partly preserved; a complete forewing and basal half of the other one attached to thorax.
Forewing with anterior margin partly missing in apical part, and posterior base part missing due to covering by a leg; wing 29.6 mm long, 8.9 mm wide; straight, concave ScP with several anterior branches reaching costal margin, each subdivided; area between ScP and costal margin with numerous crossveins and veinlets, 1.5 mm wide; ScP parallel to radius, 0.7 mm apart, ending on RA 17.5 mm from wing base; radial stem straight, with RP separating from RA 7.9 mm from wing base; RA strongly convex, straight and simple, ending 3.1 mm from wing apex; slightly concave RP posteriorly pectinate, with eight main branches, resulting into 11 branches ending on wing margin; RP and median vein separated but approximate with a short crossvein between them 5.6 mm from wing base; median vein slightly more convex than RP, divided into three straight and simple branches; presence of a brace m-cua between median vein and CuA; strongly convex CuA anteriorly pectinate with four main branches distinctly less convex than main stem of CuA, resulting into seven branches ending on wing margin; CuA separating from CuP 2.3 mm from wing base; concave CuP simple, curved with numerous crossveins between it and CuA in a 1.4 mm wide area, this zone being partly covered by a leg in one wing; area between CuP and posterior wing margin 2.5 mm wide; five visible weakly curved main branches of anal veins, a net of crossveins present in between, but poorly preserved; posterior part of anal area and wing base (possible jugal area) missing; a dense net of rather straight crossveins between branches of all main veins, except in area between CuA and CuP, between C and ScP, and anal area where nets of more irregular cells are present.
Stratigraphic and geographic range.—Gzhelian (Upper Pennsylvanian), France.
description: Published as part of Guan, Zhaoying, Prokop, Jakub, Roques, Patrick, Lapeyrie, Jean & Nel, André, 2016, Revision of the enigmatic insect family Anthracoptilidae enlightens the evolution of Palaeozoic stem-dictyopterans, pp. 71-87 in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 61 (1) on pages 76-77, DOI: 10.4202/app.00051.2014, http://zenodo.org/record/10980713